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not completely corrected. EWTN has corrected all mistakes found.)
THE EPISTLES OF CYPRIAN LV-LXXXII.
EPISTLE LV.(4)
TO THE PEOPLE OF THIBARIS, EXHORTING TO MARTYRDOM.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN FIRST OF ALL EXCUSES HIMSELF TO THE THIBARITANS THAT HE
HAD NOT BEEN TO VISIT THEM, AND GIVES THEM WARNINGS OF THE PERSECUTION AT
HAND; HE THEN FURNISHES INDUCEMENTS READILY TO UNDERGO MARTYRDOM.(5)
1. Cyprian to the people abiding at Thibaris, greeting. I had indeed
thought, beloved brethren, and prayerfully desired--if the state of things
and the condition of the times permitted, in conformity with what you
frequently desired--myself to come to you; and being present with you, then
to strengthen the brotherhood with; such moderate powers of exhortation as
I possess. But since I am detained by such urgent affairs, that I have not
the power to travel far from this place, and to be long absent from the
people over whom by divine mercy I am placed, I have written in the
meantime this letter, to be to you in my stead. For as, by the condescenson
of the Lord instructing me, I am very often instigated and warned, I ought
to bring unto your conscience also the anxiety of my warning. For you ought
to know and to believe, and hold it for certain, that the day of affliction
has begur. to hang over our heads, and the end(6) of the world and the time
of Antichrist to draw near so that we must all stand prepared for the
battle, nor consider anything but the glory of life eternal, and the crown
of the confession of the Lord; and not regard those things which are coming
as being such as were those which have passed away. A severer and a fiercer
fight is now threatening, for which the soldiers of Christ ought to prepare
themselves with uncorrupted faith and robust courage, considering that they
drink the cup of Christ's blood daily,(7) for the reason that they
themselves also may be able to shed their blood for Christ. For this is to
wish to be found with Christ, to imitate that which Christ both taught and
did, according to the Apostle John, who said, "He that saith he abideth in
Christ ought himself also so to walk even as He walked."(8) Moreover, the
blessed Apostle Paul exhorts and teaches, saying, "We are God's children;
but if children, then heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be
that we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."(9)
2. Which things must all now be considered by us, that no one may
desire anything from the world that is now dying, but may follow Christ,
who both lives for ever, and quickens His servants, who are established in
the faith of His name. For there comes the time, beloved brethren, which
our Lord long ago foretold and taught us was approaching, saying, " The
time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God
service. And these things they will do unto you, because they have not
known the Father nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the
time shall come ye may remember that I told you of them."(10) Nor let any
one wonder that we are harassed with constant persecutions, and continually
tried with increasing afflictions, when the Lord before predicted that
these things would happen in the last times, and has instructed us for the
warfare by the teaching and exhortation of His words. Peter also, His
apostle, has taught that persecutions occur for the sake of our being
proved, and that we also should, by the example of righteous men who have
gone before us, be joined to the love of God by death and sufferings. For
he wrote in his epistle, and said, "Beloved, think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, nor do ye fall away, as if
some new thing happened unto you; but as often as ye partake in Christ's
sufferings, rejoice in all things, that when His glory shall be revealed,
ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be reproached in the name of
Christ, happy are ye for the name of the majesty and power of the Lord
resteth on you, which indeed on their part is blasphemed, but on our part
is glorified."(1) Now the apostles taught us those things which they
themselves also learnt from the Lord's precepts and the heavenly commands,
the Lord Himself thus strengthening us, and saying, "There is no man that
hath left house, or land or parents, or brethren, or sisters, or wife, or
children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive sevenfold
more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting." And
again He says, "Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and shall separate
you from their company, and shall cast you out, and shall reproach your
name as evil for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap
for joy; for, behold, your reward is great in heaven."(3)
3. The Lord desired that we should rejoice and leap for joy in
persecutions, because, when persecutions occur, then are given the crowns
of faith, then the soldiers of God are proved, then the heavens are opened
to martyrs. For we have not in such a way given our name to warfare that we
ought only to think about peace, and draw back from and refuse war, when in
this very warfare the Lord walked first--the Teacher of humility, and
endurance, and suffering--so that what He taught to be done, He first of
all did, and what He exhorts to suffer, He Himself first suffered for us.
Let it be before your eyes, beloved brethren, that He who alone received a
judgment from the Father, and who will come to judge, has already declared
the decree of His judgment and of His future recognition, foretelling and
testifying that He will confess those before His Father who confess Him,
and will deny those who deny Him. If we could escape death, we might
reasonably fear to die. But since, on the other hand, it is necessary that
mortal man should die, we should embrace the occasion that comes by divine
promise and condescension and accomplish the ending provided by death with
the reward of immortality; nor fear to be slain, since we are sure when we
are slain to be crowned.
4. Nor let any one, beloved brethren, whe he beholds our people driven
away and scattered by the fear of persecution, be disturbed at not seeing
the brotherhood gathered together, nor hearing the bishops discoursing.(4)
All are not able to be there together, who may not kill, but who must be
killed. Wherever, in those days, each one of the brethren shall be
separated from the flock for a time, by the necessity of the season, in
body, not in spirit, let him not be moved at the terror of that flight;
nor, if he withdraw and be concealed, let him be alarmed at the solitude of
the desert place. He is not alone, whose companion in flight Christ is; he
is not alone who, keeping God's temple wheresoever he is, is not without
God. And if a robber should fall upon you, a fugitive in the solitude or in
the mountains; if a wild beast should attack you; if hunger, or thirst, or
cold should distress you, or the tempest and the storm should overwhelm you
hastening in a rapid voyage over the seas, Christ everywhere looks upon His
soldier fighting; and for the sake of persecution, for the honour of His
name gives a reward to him when he dies, as He has promised that He will
give in the resurrection. Nor is the glory of martyrdom less that he has
not perished publicly and before many, since the cause of perishing is to
perish for Christ. That wittness who proves martyrs, and crowns them,
suffices for a testimony of his martyrdom.
5. Let us, beloved brethren, imitate righteous Abel, who initiated
martyrdoms, he first being slain for righteousness' sake. Let us imitate
Abraham, the fricnd of God, who did not delay to offer his son as a victim
with his own hands obeying God with a faith of devotion. Let us imitate the
three children Ananias, Azarias, and I lisael, who, neither frightened by
their youthful age nor broken down by captivity, Judea being conquered and
Jerusalem taken, overcame the king by the power of faith in his own
kingdom, who, when bidden to worship the image which Nebuchadnezzar the
king had made, stood forth stronger both than the king's ! threats and the
flames, calling out and attesting their faith by these words: "O king
Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. For the
Cod whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and
He will deliver us out of thine hands, O king. But if not, be it known unto
thee, that we do not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which
thou hast set up."(5) They believed that they might escape according, to
their faith, but they added, "and if not," that the king might know that
they could also die for the God they worshipped. For this is the strength
of courage and of faith, to believe and to know that God can deliver from
present death, and yet not to fear death nor to give wav, that faith may be
the more mightily proved. The uncorrupted and unconquered might of the Holy
Spirit broke forth by their mouth, sa that the words which the Lord in His
Gospe] spoke are seen to be true: "But when they shall seize you, take no
thought what ye s al] speak; for it shall be given you in that hour what ye
shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father
which speaketh in you."(1) He said that what we are able to speak and to
answer is given to us in that hour from heaven, and supplied; and that it
is not then we who speak, but the Spirit of God our Father, who, as He does
not depart nor is separated from those who confess Him, Himself both speaks
and is crowned in us. So Daniel, too, when he was required to worship the
idol Bel, which the people and the king then worshipped in asserting the
honour of his God, broke forth with full faith and freedom, saying, " I
worship nothing but the Lord my God, who created he heaven and the
earth."(2)
6. What shall we say of the cruel tortures of the blessed martyrs in
the Maccabees,(3) and the multiform sufferings of the seven brethren, and
the inother comforting her children in their agonies, and herself dying
also with her chil dren ? Do not they witness the proofs of great courage
and faith, and exhort us by their sufferings to the triumphs of martyrdom?
What of the prophets whom the Holy Spirit quickened to the foreknowledge of
future events? What of the apostles whom the Lord chose? Since these
righteous men were slain for righteousness sake, have they not taught us
also to die? The nativity of Christ witnessed at once the martyrdom of
infants, so that they who were two years old and under were slain for His
name's sake. An age not yet fitted for the battle appeared fit for the
crown. That it might be manifest that they who are slain for Christ's sake
are innocent, innocent infancy was put to death for His name's sake. It is
shown that none is free from the peril of persecution, when even these
accomplished martyrdoms. But how grave is thc case of a Christian man, if
he, a servant, is un willing to suffer, when his Master first suffered and
that we should be unwilling to suffer for our own sins, when He who had no
sin of His own suffered for us! The Son of God suffered that He might make
us sons of God, and the son of man will not suffer that he may continue to
be a son of God! If we suffer from the world's hatred, Christ first endured
the world's hatred. If we suffer reproaches in this world if exile, if
tortures, the Maker and Lord of the world experienced harder things than
these, and He also warns us, saying, "If the world hate you, remember that
it hated me before you. If ye were of the world, the world would love its
own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the
world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto
you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me,
they will also persecute you."(4) Whatever our Lord and God taught, He also
did, that the disciple might not be excused if he learns and does not.
7. Nor let any one of you, beloved brethren be so terrified by the fear
of future persecution, or the coming of the threatening Antichrist, as not
to be found armed for all things by the evangelical exhortations and
precepts, and by the heavenly warnings. Antichrist is coming, but above him
comes Christ also.(5) The enemy goeth about and rageth, but immediately the
Lord follows to avenge our sufferings and our wounds. The adversary is
enraged and threatens, but there is One who can deliver us from his hands.
He is to be feared whose anger no one can escape, as He Himself forewarns,
and says: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the
soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in
hell."(6) And again: "He that loveth his life, shall lose it; and he that
hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal."(7) And in
the Apocalypse He instructs and forewarns, saying, "If any man worship the
beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand,
the same also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, mixed in the cup
of His indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in
the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the
smoke of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever; and they shall
have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image."(8)
8. For the secular contest men are trained and prepared, and reckon it
a great glory of their honour if it should happen to them to be crowned in
the sight of the people, and in the presence of the emperor. Behold a lofty
and great contest, glorious also with the reward of a heavenly crown,
inasmuch as God looks upon us as we struggle, and, extending His view over
those whom He has condescended to make His sons, He enjoys the spectacle of
our contest God looks upon us in the warfare, and fighting in the encounter
of faith; His angels look or us, and Christ looks on us. How great is the
dignity, and how great the happiness of the glory, to engage in the
presence of God, and to be crowned, with Christ for a judge! Let us be
armed, beloved brethren, with our whole strength, and let us be prepared
for the struggle with an uncorrupted mind, with a sound faith, with a
devoted courage Let the camp of God go forth to the battle-field which is
appointed to us Let the sound ones be armed, lest he that is sound should
lose the advantage of having lately stood; let the lapsed also be armed,
that even the lapsed may regain what he has lost let honour provoke the
whole; let sorrow provoke the lapsed to the battle The Apostle Paul teaches
us to he armed and prepared, saying, " We wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against powers, and the princes of this world and of this
darkness, against spirits of wickedness in high places. Wherefore put on
the whole armour, that ye may be able to withstand in the most evil day,
that when ye have done all ye may stand; having your loins girt about with
truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet
shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; taking the shield of
faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the
wicked one; and the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which
is the word of God."
9. Let us take these arms, let us fortify ourselves with these
spiritual and heavenly safeguards, that in the most evil day we, may be
able to withstand, and to resist the threats of the clevil let us put on
the breastplate of righteousness, that our breast may be fortified and safe
against the darts of the enemy: let our feet be shod with evangelical
teaching, and armed, so that when the serpent shall begin to be trodden and
crushed by us, he may not be able to bite and trip us up: let us bravely
bear the shield of faith, by the protection of which, whatever the enemy
darts at us may be extinguished: let us take also for protection of our
head the helmet of salvation, that our ears may be guarded from hearing the
deadly edicts; that our eyes may be fortified, that they may not see the
odious images; that our brow mav be fortified, so as to keep safe the sign
of God;(2) that our mouth may be fortified, that the conquering tongue may
confess Christ its Lord: let us also arm the right hand with the sword of
the Spirit, that it may bravely reject the deadly sacrifices; that, mindful
of the Eucharist, the hand which has received the Lord's body(3) may
embrace the Lord Himself, hereafter to receive from the Lord the reward of
heavenly crowns.
10. Oh, what and how great will that day be at its coming, beloved
brethren, when the Lord shall begin to count up His people, and to
recognise the deservings of each one by the inspection of His divine
knowledge, to send the guilty to Gehenna, and to set on fire our
persecutors with the perpetual burning of a penal fire, but to pay to us
the reward of our faith and devotion! What will be the glory and how great
the joy to be admitted to see God, to be honoured to receive with Christ,
thy Lord God, the joy of eternal salvation and light--to greet Abraham, and
Isaac, and Jacob, and all the patriarchs, and prophets, and apostles, and
martyrs--to rejoice with the righteous and the friends of God in the
kingdom of heaven, with the pleasure of immortality given to us--to receive
there what neither eye hath seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into
the heart of man! For the apostle announces that we shall receive greater
things than anything that we here either do or suffer, saying, "The
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory to come hereafter which shall be revealed in us."(4) When that
revelation shall come, when that glory of God shall shine upon us, we shall
be as happy and joyful, honoured with the condescension of God, as they
will remain guilty and wretched, who, either as deserters from God or
rebels against Him, have done the will of the devil, so that it is
necessary for them to be tormented with the devil himself in unquenchable
fire.
12. Let these things, beloved brethren, take hold of our hearts; let
this be the preparation of our arms, this our daily and nightly meditationr
to have before our eyes and ever to revolve in our thoughts and feelings
the punishments of the wicked and the rewards and the deservings of the
righteous what the Lord threatens by way of punishment against those that
deny Him; what, on the other hand, He promises by way of glory to those
that confess Him. If, while we think and meditate on these things, there
should come to us a day of persecution, the soldier of Christ instructed in
His precepts and warnings is not fearful for the battle, but is prepared
for the crown I bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LVI.(5)
TO CORNELIUS IN EXILE, CONCERNING HIS CONFESSION.
ARGUMENT.-CYPRIAN PRAISES IN CORNELIUS AND HIS PEOPLE THEIR CONFESSION OF
THE NAME OF CHRIST EVEN TO BANISHMENT; AND EXHORTS THEM TO CONSTANCY AND TO
MUTUAL PRAYER FOR ONE ANOTHER, AS WELL IN RESPECT OF THE APPROACHING DAY OF
STRUGGLE IN THIS LIFE, AS AFTER DEATH.(1)
1. Cyprian to Cornelius his brother, greeting. We have been made
acquainted, dearest brother, with the glorious testimonies of your faith
and courage, and have received with such exultation the honour of your
confession, that we count ourselves also sharers and companions in your
merits and praises. For as we have one Church, a mind united, and a concord
undivided, what priest does not congratulate himself on the praises of his
fellow-priest(2) as if on his own; or what brotherhood would not rejoice in
the joy of its brethren? It cannot be sufficiently declared how great was
the exultation and how great the joy here, when we had heard of your
success and bravery, that you had stood forth as a leader of confession to
the brethren there; and, moreover, that the confession of the leader had
increased by the consent of the brethren; so that, while you precede them
to glory, you have made many your companions in glory, and have persuaded
the people to become a confessor by being first prepared to confess on
behalf of all; so that we are at a loss what we ought first of all to
commend in you, whether your prompt and decided faith, or the inseparable
love of the brethren. Among you the courage of the bishop going before has
been publicly proved, and the unitedness of the brotherhood following has
been shown. As with you there is one mind and one voice, the whole Roman
Church has confessed.(3)
2. The faith, dearest brethren, which the blessed apostle commended in
you has shone brightly. He even then in the spirit foresaw this praise of
courage and firmness of strength; and, attesting your merits by the
commendation of your future doings, in praising the parents he provokes the
children. While you are thus unanimous, while you are thus brave, you have
given great examples both of unanimity and of bravery to the rest of the
brethren. You have taught them deeply to fear God, firmly to cling to
Christ; that the people should be associated with the priests in peril;
that the brethren should not be separated from brethren in persecution;
that a concord, once established, can by no means be overcome; that
whatsoever is at the same time sought for by all, the God of peace will
grant to the peaceful. The adversary had leapt forth to disturb the camp of
Christ with violent terror; but, with the same impetuosity with which he
had come, he was beaten back and conquered; and as much fear and terror as
he had brought, so much bravery and strength he also found. He had thought
that he could again overthrow the servants of God, and agitate them in his
accustomed manner as if they were novices and inexperienced--as if little
prepared and little cautious. He attacked one first, as a wolf had tried to
separate the sheep from the flock, as a hawk to separate the dove from the
flying troop; for he who has not sufficient strength against all, seeks to
gain advantage frorr the solitude of individuals. But when beaten back as
well by the faith as by the vigour of the combined army, he perceived that
the soldiers of Christ are now watching, and stand sober and armed for the
battle; that they cannot be conquered, but that they can die; and that by
this very fact they are invincible, that they do nol fear death; that they
do not in turn assail their assailants, since it is not lawful for the
innocent even to kill the guilty; but that they readily deliver up both
their lives and their blood; that since such malice and cruelty rages in
the world, they may the more quickly withdraw from the evil and cruel. What
a glorious spectacle was that under the eyes of God! what a joy of His
Church in the sight of Christ, that not single soldiers, but the whole
camp, at once went forth to the battle which the enemy had tried to begin!
For it is plain that all would have come if they could have heard, since
whoever heard ran hastily and came. How many lapsed were there restored by
a glorious confession! They bravely stood, and by the very suffering of
repentance were made braver for the battle, that it might appear that
lately they had been taken at unawares, and had trembled at the fear of a
new and unaccustomed thing, but that they had afterwards returned to
themselves; that true faith and their strength, gathered from the fear of
God, had constantly and firmly strengthened them to all endurance; and that
now they do not stand for pardon of their crime, but for the crown of their
suffering.
3. What does Novatian say to these things dearest brother? Does he yet
lay aside his error? Or, indeed, as is the custom of foolish men, is he
more driven to fury by our very benefits and prosperity; and in proportion
as the glory of love and faith grows here more and more, does the madness
of dissension and envy break out anew there ? Does the wretched man not
cure his own wound, but wound both himself and his friends still more
severely, clamouring with his tongue to the ruin of the brethren, and
hurling darts of poisonous eloquence, more severe in accordance with the
wickedness of a secular philosophy than peaceable with the gentleness of
the Lord's wisdom,--a deserter of the Church, a foe to mercy, a destroyer
of repentance, a teacher of arrogance, a corrupter of truth, a murderer of
love? Does he now acknowledge who is the priest of God; which is the Church
and the house of Christ; who are God's servants, whom the devil molests;
who the Christians, whom Antichrist attacks? For neither does he seek those
whom he has already subdued, nor does he take the trouble to overthrow
those whom he has already made his own. The foe and enemy of the Church
despises and passes by those whom he has alienated from the Church, and led
without as captives and conquered; he goes on to harass those in whom he
sees Christ dwell.
4. Even although any one of such should have been seized, there is no
reason for his flattering himself, as if in the confession of the name;
since it is manifest that, if people of this sort should be put to death
outside the Church it is no crown of faith, but is rather a punishment of
treachery. Nor will those dwell in the house of God among those that are of
one mind, whom we see to have withdrawn by the madness of discord from the
peaceful and divine household.
5. We earnestly exhort as much as we can, dearest brother, for the sake
of the mutual love by which we are joined one to another, that since we are
instructed by the providence of the Lord, who warns us, and are admonished
by the wholesome counsels of divine mercy, that the day of our contest and
struggle is already approaching, we should not cease to be instant with all
the people in fastings, in watchings, in prayers. Let us be urgent, with
constant groanings and frequent prayers. For these are our heavenly arms,
which make us to stand fast and bravely to persevere. These are the
spiritual defences and divine weapons which defend us. Let us remember one
another in concord and unanimity. Let us on both sides always pray for one
another. Let us relieve burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if any
one of us, by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence the
first, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers
for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father's
mercy. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartly farewell.
EPISTLE LVII.(1)
TO LUCIUS(2) THE BISHOP OF ROME, RETURNED FROM BANISHMENT.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN, WITH HIS COLLEAGUES, CONGRATULATES LUCIUS ON HIS RETURN
FROM EXILE, REMINDING HIM THAT MARTYRDOM DEFERRED DOES NOT MAKE THE GLORY
LESS. THEN, POINTING OUT THAT THE MARTYRDOM OF CORNELIUS AND THE BANISHMENT
OF LUCIUS HAD HAPPENED BY DIVINE DIRECTION, FOR THE CONFUSION OF THE
NOVATIANS, HE FORETELLS TO HIM HIS OWN IMPENDING MARTYRDOM, GOD SO
ORDAINING IT THAT IT SHOULD BE CONSUMMATED NOT AWAY FROM HOME, BUT AMONG
HIS OWN PEOPLE.
1. Cyprian, with his colleagues, to Lucius his brother, greeting. We
had lately also congratulated you indeed, dearest brother, when the divine
condescension, by a double honour, appointed you in the administration of
God's Church; as well a confessor as a priest. But now also we no less
congratulate you and your companions, and the whole fraternity, that the
benignant and liberal protection of the Lord has brought. you back again to
His own with the same glory, and with praises to you; that so the shepherd
might be restored to feed his flock, and the pilot to manage the ship, and
the ruler to govern the people; and that it might appear that your
banishment was so divinely arranged, not that the bishop banished and
driven away should be wanting to the Church, but that he should return to
the Church greater than he had left it.
2. For the dignity of martyrdom was not the less in the case of the
three youths, because, their death being frustrated, they came forth safe
from the fiery furnace; nor did Daniel stand forth uncompleted in the
praise he deserved, because, when he had been sent to the lions for a prey,
he was protected by the Lord, and lived to glory. Among confessors of
Christ, martyrdoms deferred do not diminish the merits of confession, but
show forth the greatness of divine protection. We see represented in you
what the brave and illustrious youths announced before the king that they
indeed were prepared to be burnt in the flames, that they might not serve
his gods, nor worship the image which he had made; but that the God whom
they worshipped, and whom we also worship, was able even to rescue them
from the fiery furnace, and to deliver them from the hands of the king, and
from imminent sufferings. This we now find carried out in the faith of your
confession, and in the Lord's protection over you; so that while you were
prepared and ready to undergo all punishment, yet the Lord withdrew you
from punishment, and preserved you for the Church. In your return the
dignity of his confession has not been abridged in the bishop, but the
priestly authority has rather increased; so that a priest is assisting at
the altar of God, who exhorts the people to take up the arms of confession,
and to submit to martyrdom not by his words, but by his deeds; and, now
that Antichrist is near, prepares the soldiers for the battle, not only by
the urgency of his speech and his words, but by the example of his faith
and courage.
3. We understand, dearest brother, and we perceive with the whole light
of our heart, the salutary and holy plans of the divine majesty, whence the
sudden persecution lately arose there--whence the secular power suddenly
broke forth against the Church of Christ and the bishop Cornelius, the
blessed martyr, and all of you; so that, for the confusion and beating down
of heretics, the Lord might show[1] which was the Church --which is its one
bishop chosen by divine appointment--which presbyters are associated with
the bishop in priestly honour--which is the united and true people of
Christ, linked together in the love of the Lord's flock--who they were whom
the enemy would harass; whom, on the other hand, the devil would spare as
being his own. For Christ's adversary does not persecute and attack any
except Christ's camp and soldiers; heretics, once prostrated and made his
own, he despises and passes by. He seeks to cast down those whom he sees to
stand.
4. And I wish, dearest brother, that the power were now given us to be
with you there on your return, that we ourselves, who love you with mutual
love, might, being present with the rest, also receive the very joyous
fruit of your coming. What exultation among all the brethren there; what
running together and embracing of each one as they arrive! Scarcely can you
be satisfied with the kisses of those who cling to you; scarcely can the
very faces and eyes of the people be satiated with seeing. At the joy of
your coming the brotherhood there has begun to recognise what and how great
a joy will follow when Christ shall come. For because His advent will
quickly approach, a kind of representation has now gone before in you; that
just as John, His forerunner and preparer of His way, came and preached
that Christ had come, so, now that a bishop returns as a confessor of the
Lord, and His priest, it appears that the Lord also is now returning. But I
and my colleagues, and all the brotherhood, send this letter to you in the
stead of us, dearest brother; and setting forth to you by our letter our
joy, we express the faithful inclination of our love here also in our
sacrifices and our prayers, not ceasing to give thanks to God the Father,
and to Christ His Son our Lord; and as well to pray as to entreat, that He
who is perfect, and makes perfect, will keep and perfect in you the
glorious crown of your confession, who perchance has called you back for
this purpose, that your glory should not be hidden, if the martyrdom of
your confession should be consummated away from home. For the victim which
affords an example to the brotherhood both of courage and of faith, ought
to be offered up when the brethren are present. We bid you, dearest
brother, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LVIII.[2]
TO FIDUS, ON THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS.
ARGUMENT.--IN THIS LETTER CYPRIAN IS NOT ESTABLISHING ANY NEW DECREE; BUT
KEEPING MOST FIRMLY THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH, FOR THE CORRECTION OF THOSE
WHO THOUGHT THAT AN INFANT MUST NOT BE BAPTIZED BEFORE THE EIGHTH DAY AFTER
ITS BIRTH, HE DECREED WITH SOME OF HIS FELLOW-BISHOPS, THAT AS SOON AS IT
WAS BORN IT MIGHT PROPERLY BE BAPTIZED. HE TAKES OCCASION, HOWEVER, TO
REFUSE TO RECALL THE PEACE THAT HAD BEEN GRANTED TO ONE VICTOR, ALTHOUGH IT
HAD BEEN GRANTED AGAINST THE DECREES OF SYNODS CONCERNING THE LAPSED; BUT
FORBIDS THERAPIUS THE BISHOP TO DO IT IN OTHER CASES.[3]
1. Cyprian, and others his colleagues who were present in council, in
number sixty-six, to Fidus their brother, greeting. We have read your
letter, dearest brother, in which you intimated concerning Victor, formerly
a presbyter, that our colleague Therapius, rashly at a too early season,
and with over-eager haste, granted peace to him before he had fully
repented, and had satisfied the Lord God, against whom he had sinned; which
thing rather disturbed us, that it was a departure from the authority of
our decree,[4] that peace should be granted to him before the legitimate
and full time of satisfaction, and without the request and consciousness of
the people--no sickness rendering it urgent, and no necessity compelling
it. But the judgment being long weighed among us, it was considered
sufficient to rebuke Therapius our colleague for having done this rashly,
and to have instructed him that he should not do the like with any other.
Yet we did not think that the peace once granted in any wise by a priest s
of God was to be taken away, and for this reason have allowed Victor to
avail himself of the communion granted to him.
2. But in respect of the case of the infants, which you say ought not
to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, and that
the law of ancient circumcision should be regarded, so that you think that
one who is just born should not be baptized and sanctified within the
eighth day, we all thought very differently in our council. For in this
course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather
judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born
of man. For as the Lord says in His Gospel, "The Son of man is not come to
destroy men's lives, but to save them,"[1] as far as we Can, We must strive
that, if possible, no soul be lost. For what is wanting to him who has once
been formed in the womb by the hand of God? To us, indeed, and to our eyes,
according to the worldly course of days, they who are born appear to
receive an increase. But whatever things are made by God, are completed by
the majesty and work of God their Maker.
3. Moreover, belief in divine Scripture declares to us, that among all,
whether infants or those who are older, there is the same equality of the
divine gift. Elisha, beseeching God, so laid himself upon the infant son of
the widow, who was lying dead, that his head was applied to his head, and
his face to his face, and the limbs of Elisha were spread over and joined
to each of the limbs of the child, and his feet to his feet. If this thing
be considered with respect to the inequality of our birth and our body, an
infant could not be made equal with a person grown up and mature, nor could
its little limbs fit anti be equal to the larger limbs of a man. But in
that is expressed the divine and spiritual equality, that all men are like
and equal, since they have once been made by Cool; and our age may have a
difference in the increase of our bodies, according to the world, but not
according to God; unless that very grace also which is given to the
baptized is given either less or more, according to the age of the
receivers, whereas the Holy Spirit is not given with measure, but by the
love and mercy of the Father alike to all. For God, as He does not accept
the person, so does not accept the age; since He shows Himself Father to
all with well-weighed equality for the attainment of heavenly grace.
4. For, with respect to what you say, that the aspect of an infant in
the first days after its birth is not pure, so that any one of us would
still shudder at kissing it,[2] we do not think that this ought to be
alleged as any impediment to heavenly grace. For it is written, "To the
pure all things are pure."[3] Nor ought any of us to shudder at that which
God hath condescended to make. For although the infant is still fresh from
its birth, yet it is not such that any one should shudder at kissing it in
giving grace and in making peace; since in the kiss of an infant every one
of us ought for his very religions sake, to consider the still recent hands
of God themselves, which in some sort we are kissing, in the man lately
formed and freshly born, when we are embracing that which God has made. For
in respect of the observance of the eighth day in the Jewish circumcision
of the flesh, a sacrament was given beforehand in shadow and in usage; but
when Christ came, it was fulfilled in truth. For because the eighth day,
that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was to be that on which the Lord
should rise again, and should quicken us, and give us circumcision of the
spirit, the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and the
Lord's day, went before in the figure; which figure ceased when by and by
the truth came, and spiritual circumcision was given to us.
5. For which reason we think that no one is to be hindered from obtaining
grace by that law which was already ordained, and that spiritual
circumcision ought not to be hindered by carnal circumcision, but that
absolutely every man is to be admitted to the grace of Christ, since Peter
also in the Acts of the Apostles speaks, and says, "The Lord hath said to
me that I should call no man common or unclean."[4] But if anything could
hinder men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather
hinder those who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to
the greatest sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when
they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted--and nobody is
hindered from baptism and from grace--how much rather ought we to shrink
from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except
in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam,[5] he has contracted
the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches
the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of
sins--that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another.
6. And therefore, dearest brother, this was our opinion in council,
that by us no one ought to he hindered from baptism and from the grace of
God, who is merciful and kind and loving to all. Which, since it is to he
observed and maintained in respect of all, we think is to be even more
observed in respect of infants and newly-born persons, who on this very
account deserve more from our help and from the divine mercy, that
immediately, on the very beginning of their birth, lamenting and weeping,
they do nothing else but entreat. We bid you, dearest brother, ever
heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LIX.[1]
TO THE NUMIDIAN BISHOPS, ON THE REDEMPTION OF THEIR BRETHREN FROM CAPTIVITY
AMONG THE BARBARIANS.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN BEGINS BY DEPLORING THE CAPTIVITY OF THE BRETHREN, OF'
WHICH HE HAD HEARD FROM THE NUMIDIAN BISHOPS, AND SAYS THAT HE IS SENDING
THEM A HUNDRED THOUSAND SESTERCES, CONTRIBUTED BY BRETHREN AND SISTERS AND
COLLEAGUES[2]
1. Cyprian to Januarius, Maximus, Proculus, Victor, Modianus,
Nemesianus, Nampulus, and Honoratus, his brethren, greeting. With excessive
grief of mind, and not without tears, dearest, brethren, I have read your
letter which you wrote to me from the solicitude of your love, concerning
the captivity of our brethren and sisters. For who would not grieve at
misfortunes of that kind, or who would not consider his brother's grief his
own, since the Apostle Paul speaks, saying, "Whether one member suffer, all
the members suffer with it; or one member rejoice, all the members rejoice
with it;"[3] and in another place he says, "Who is weak, and I am not
weak?"[4] Wherefore now also the captivity of our brethren must be reckoned
as our captivity, and the grief of those who are endangered is to be
esteemed as our grief, since indeed there is one body of our union; and not
love only, but also religion, ought to instigate and strengthen us to
redeem the members of the brethren.
2. For inasmuch as the Apostle Paul says again, "Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"[5]--
even although love urged us less to bring help to the brethren, yet in this
place we must have considered that it was the temples of God which were
taken captive, and that we ought not by long inactivity and neglect of
their suffering to allow the temples of God to be long captive, but to
strive with what powers we can, and to act quickly by our obedience, to
deserve well of Christ our Judge and Lord and God. For as the Apostle Paul
says, "As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on
Christ,"[6] Christ is to be contemplated in our captive brethren, and He is
to be redeemed from the peril of captivity who redeemed us from the peril
of death; so that He who took us out of the jaws of the devil, who abides
and dwells in us, may now Himself be rescued and redeemed from the hands of
barbarians by a sum of money--who redeemed us by His cross and blood--who
suffers these things to happen for this reason, that our faith may be
tried, whether each one of us will do for another what he would wish to be
done for himself, if he himself were held captive among barbarians. For who
that is mindful of humanity, and reminded of mutual love, if he be a
father, will not now consider that his sons are there; if he be a husband,
will not think that his wife is there kept captive, with as much grief as
shame for the marriage tie? But how great is the general grief among all of
us, and suffering concerning the peril of virgins who are kept there, on
whose behalf we must bewail not only the loss of liberty, but of modesty;
and must lament the bonds of barbarians less than the violence of seducers
and abominable places, lest the members dedicated to Christ, and devoted
for ever in honour of continence by modest. virtue, should be sullied by
the Just and contagion of the insulter.
3. Our brotherhood, considering all these things according to your
letter, and sorrowfully examining, have all promptly and willingly and
liberally gathered together supplies of money for the brethren, being
always indeed, according to the strength of their faith, prone to the work
of God, but now even more stimulated to salutary works by the consideration
of so great a suffering. For since the Lord in His Gospel says, "I was
sick, and ye visited me,"[7] with how much greater reward for our work will
He say now, "I was captive, and ye redeemed me!" And since again He says,
"I was in prison, and ye came unto me," how much more will it be when He
begins to say, "I was in the dungeon of captivity, and I lay shut up and
bound among barbarians, and from that prison of slavery you delivered me,"
being about to receive a reward from the Lord when the day of judgment
shall come! Finally, we give you the warmest thanks that you have wished us
to be sharers in your anxiety,[8] and in so great and necessary a work--
that you have offered us fruitful fields in which we might cast the seeds
of our hope, with the expectation of a harvest of the most abundant fruits
which will proceed from this heavenly and saving operation. We have then
sent you a sum of one hundred thousand sesterces,[9] which have been
collected here in the Church over which by the Lord's mercy we preside, by
the contributions of the clergy and people established with us, which you
will there dispense with what diligence you may.
4. And we wish, indeed, that nothing of such a kind may happen again,
and that our brethren, protected by the majesty of the Lord, may be
preserved safe from perils of this kind. If, however, for the searching out
of the love of our mind, and for the testing of the faith of our heart, any
such thing should happen, do not delay to tell us of it in your letters,
counting it for certain that our church and the whole fraternity here
beseech by their prayers that these things may not happen again; but if
they happen, that they will willingly and liberally render help. But that
you may have in mind in your prayers our brethren and sisters who have
laboured so promptly and liberally for this needful work, that they may
always labour; and that in return for their good work you may present them
in your sacrifices and prayers, I have subjoined the names of each one; and
moreover also I have added the names of my colleagues and fellow-priests,
who themselves also, as they were present, contributed some little
according to their power, in their own names and the name of their people.
And besides our own amount, I have intimated and sent their small sums, all
of whom, in conformity with the claims of faith and charity, you ought to
remember in your supplications and prayers.[1] We bid you, dearest
brethren, ever heartily farewell, and remember us.
EPISTLE LX.[2]
TO EUCHRATIUS, ABOUT AN ACTOR.
ARGUMENT.--HE FORBIDS AN ACTOR, IF HE CONTINUE IN HIS DISGRACEFUL CALLING,
FROM COMMUNICATING IN THE CHURCH. NEITHER DOES HE ALLOW IT TO BE AN
EXCUSE FOR HIM, THAT HE HIMSELF DOES NOT PRACTICE THE HISTRIONIC ART, SO
LONG AS HE TEACHES IT TO OTHERS; NEITHER DOES HE EXCUSE IT BECAUSE OF THE
WANT OF MEANS, SINCE NECESSARIES MAY BE SUPPLIED TO HIM FROM THE RESOURCES
OF THE CHURCH; AND THEREFORE, IF THE MEANS OF THE CHURCH THERE ARE NOT
SUFFICIENT, HE RECOMMENDS HIM TO COME TO CARTHAGE.
1. Cyprian to Euchratius his brother, greeting. From our mutual love
and your reverence for me you have thought that I should be consulted,
dearest brother, as to my opinion concerning a certain actor, who, being
settled among you, still persists in the discredit of the same art of his;
and as a master and teacher, not for the instruction, but for the
destruction of boys, that which he has unfortunately learnt he also imparts
to others: you ask whether such a one ought to communicate with us. This, I
think, neither befits the divine majesty nor the discipline of the Gospel,
that the modesty and credit of the Church should be polluted by so
disgraceful and infamous a contagion. For since, in the law, men are
forbidden to put on a woman's garment, and those that offend in this manner
are judged accursed, how much greater is the crime, not only to take
women's garments, but also to express base and effeminate and luxurious
gestures, by the teaching of an immodest art.
2. Nor let any one excuse himself that he himself has given up the
theatre, while he is still teaching the art to others. For he cannot appear
to have given it up who substitutes others in his place, and who, instead
of himself alone, supplies many in his stead; against God's appointment,
instructing and teaching in what way a man may be broken down into a woman,
and his sex changed by art,[3] and how the devil who pollutes the divine
image may be gratified by the sins of a corrupted and enervated body. But
if such a one alleges poverty and the necessity of small means, his
necessity also can be assisted among the rest who are maintained by the
support of the Church; if he be content, that is, with very frugal but
innocent food. And let him not think that he is redeemed by an allowance to
cease from sinning, since this is an advantage not to us, but to himself.
What more he may wish he must seek thence, from such gain as takes men away
from the banquet of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and leads them down,
sadly and perniciously fattened in this world, to the eternal torments of
hunger and thirst; and therefore, as far as you can, recall him from this
depravity and disgrace to the way of innocence, and to the hope of eternal
life, that he may be content with the maintenance of the Church, sparing
indeed, but wholesome. But if the Church with you is not sufficient for
this, to afford support for those in need, he may transfer himself to us,
and here receive what may be necessary to him for food and clothing, and
not teach deadly things to others without the Church, but himself learn
wholesome things in the Church. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily
farewell.
EPISTLE LXI.[4]
TO POMPONIUS, CONCERNING SOME VIRGINS.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN, WITH SOME OF HIS COLLEAGUES, REPLIES TO HIS COLLEAGUE
POMPONIUS, THAT VIRGINS WHO HAD DETERMINED TO MAINTAIN THEIR STATE WITH
CONTINENCY AND FIRMNESS, BUT WHO HAD YET SUBSEQUENTLY BEEN FOUND IN THE
SAME BED WITH MEN, IF THEY WERE STILL FOUND TO BE VIRGINS, SHOULD BE
RECEIVED INTO COMMUNION AND ADMITTED TO THE CHURCH. BUT IF OTHERWISE, SINCE
THEY ARE ADULTEROUS TOWARDS CHRIST, THEY SHOULD BE COMPELLED TO FULL
REPENTANCE, AND THOSE WHO SHOULD OBSTINATELY PERSEVERE SHOULD BE EJECTED
FROM THE CHURCH.
1. Cyprian, Caecilius, Victor, Sedatus, Tertullus, with the presbyters
who were present with them, to Pomponius their brother, greeting. We have
read, dearest brother, your letter which you sent by Paconius our brother,
asking and desiring us to write again to you, and say what we thought of
those virgins who, after having once determined to continue in their
condition, and firmly to maintain their continency, have afterwards been
found to have remained in the same bed side by side with men; of whom you
say that one is a deacon; and yet that the same virgins who have confessed
that they have slept with men declare that they are chaste.[1] Concerning
which matters, since you have desired our advice, know that we do not
depart from the traditions of the Gospel and of the apostles, but with
constancy and firmness take counsel for our brethren and sisters, and
maintain the discipline of the Church by all the ways of usefulness and
safety, since the Lord speaks, saying, "And I will give you pastors
according to. mine heart, and they shall feed you with discipline."[2] And
again it is written; "Whoso despiseth discipline is miserable;[3] and in
the Psalms also the Holy Spirit admonishes and instructs us, saying, "Keep
discipline, lest haply the Lord be angry, and ye perish from the right way,
when His anger shall quickly burn against you."[4]
2. In the first place, therefore, dearest brother, both by overseers
and people nothing is to be more eagerly sought after, than that we who
fear God should keep the divine precepts with every observation of
discipline, and should not suffer our brethren to stray, and to live
according to their own fancy and lust;[5] but that we should faithfully
consult for the life of each one, and not stiffer virgins to dwell with
men,--I do not say to sleep together, but to live together[6]--since both
their weak sex and their age, still critical, ought to be bridled in all
things and ruled by us, lest an occasion should be given to the devil who
ensnares us, and desires to rage over us, to hurt them, since the apostle
also says, "Do not give place to the devil."[7] The ship is watchfully to
be delivered from perilous places, that it may not be broken among the
rocks and cliffs; the baggage must swiftly be taken out of the fire, before
it is burnt up by the flames reaching it. No one who is near to danger is
long safe, nor will the servant of God be able to escape the devil if he
has entangled himself in the devil's nets. We must interfere at once with
such as these, that they may be separated while yet they can be separated
in innocence; because by and by they will not be able to be separated by
our interference, after they have become joined together by a very guilty
conscience. Moreover, what a number of serious mischiefs we see to have
arisen hence; and what a multitude of virgins we behold corrupted by
unlawful and dangerous conjunctions of this kind, to our great grief of
mind! But if they have faithfully dedicated themselves to Christ, let them
persevere in modesty and chastity, without incurring any evil report, and
so in courage and steadiness await the reward of virginity. But if they are
unwilling or unable to persevere, it is better that they should marry, than
that by their crimes they should fall into the fire. Certainly let them not
cause a scandal to the brethren or sisters, since it is written, "If meat
cause my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth,
lest I make my brother to offend."[8]
3. Nor let any one think that she can be defended by this excuse, that
she may be examined and proved whether she be a virgin; since both the
hands and the eyes of the midwives are often deceived; and if she be found
to be a virgin in that particular in which a woman may be so, yet she may
have sinned in some other part of her body, which may be cor-rupted and yet
cannot be examined. Assuredly the mere lying together, the mere embracing,
the very talking together, and the act of kissing, and the disgraceful and
foul slumber of two persons lying together, how much of dishonour and crime
does it confess! If a husband come upon his wife, and see her lying with
another man, is he not angry and raging, and by the passion of his rage
does he not perhaps take his sword into his hand? And what shall Christ and
our Lord and Judge think, when He sees His virgin, dedicated to Him, and
destined for His holiness, lying with another? How indignant and angry is
He, and what penalties does He threaten against such unchaste connections!
whose spiritual sword and the coming day of judgment, that every one of the
brethren may be able to escape, we ought with all our counsel to provide
and to strive. And since it behoves all by all means to keep discipline,[9]
much more is it right that overseers and deacons should be careful for
this, that they may afford an example and instruction to others concerning
their conversation and character. For how can they direct the integrity and
continence of others, if the corruptions and teachings of sin begin to
proceed from themselves?
4. And therefore you have acted advisedly and with vigour, dearest
brother, in excommunicating the deacon who has often abode with a virgin;
and, moreover, the others who had been used to sleep with virgins. But if
they have repented of this their unlawful lying together, and have mutually
withdrawn from one another, let the virgins meantime be carefully inspected
by midwives; and if they should be found virgins, let them be received to
communion, and admitted to the Church; yet with this threatening, that if
subsequently they should return to the same men, or if they should dwell
together with the same men in one house or under the same roof, they should
be ejected with a severer censure, nor should such be afterwards easily
received into the Church. But if any one of them be found to be corrupted,
let her abundantly repent, because she who has been guilty of this crime is
an adulteress, not (indeed) against a husband, but against Christ; and
therefore, a due time being appointed, let her afterwards, when confession
has been made, return to the Church. But if they obstinately persevere, and
do not mutually separate themselves, let them know that, with this their
immodest obstinacy, they can never be admitted by us into the Church, lest
they should begin to set an example to others to go to ruin by their
crimes. Nor let them think that the way of life or of salvation is still
open to them, if they have refused to obey the bishops and priests, since
in Deuteronomy the Lord God says, "And the man that will do
presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest or judge, whosoever be
shall be in those days, that man shall die, and all the people shall hear
and fear, and do no more presumptuously."[1] God commanded those who did
not obey His priests to be slain, and those who did not hearken to His
judges who were appointed for the time. And then indeed they were slain
with the sword, when the circumcision of the flesh was yet in force; but
now that circumcision has begun to be of the spirit among God's faithful
servants, the proud and contumacious are slain with the sword of the
Spirit, in that they are cast out of the Church. For they cannot live out
of it, since the house of God is one, and there can be no salvation to any
except in the Church. But the divine Scripture testifies that the
undisciplined perish, because they do not listen to, nor obey wholesome
precepts; for it says, "An undisciplined man loveth not him that correcteth
him. But they who hate reproof shall be consumed with disgrace."[2]
5. Therefore, dearest brother, endeavour that the undisciplined should
not be consumed and perish, that as much as you can, by your salutary
counsels, you should rule the brotherhood, and take counsel of each one
with a view to his salvation. Strait and narrow is the way through which we
enter into life, but excellent and great is the reward when we enter into
glory. Let those who have once made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of
heaven[3] please God in all things, and not offend God's priests nor the
Lord's Church by the scandal of their wickedness. And if, for the present,
certain of our brethren seem to be made sorry by us, let us nevertheless
remain in our wholesome persuasion, knowing that an apostle also has said,
"Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?"[4] But if
they shall obey us, we have gained our brethren, and have formed them as
well to salvation as to dignity by our address. But if some of the perverse
persons refuse to obey, let us follow the same apostle, who says, "If I
please men, I should not be the servant of Christ."[5] If we cannot please
some, so as to make them please Christ, let us assuredly, as far as we can,
please Christ our Lord and God, by observing His precepts. I bid you,
brother beloved and much longed-for. heartily farewell in the Lord.[6]
EPISTLE LXII.[7]
CAECILIUS, ON THE SACRAMENT OF THE CUP OF THE LORD.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN TEACHES, IN OPPOSITION TO THOSE WHO USED WATER IN THE
LORD'S SUPPER, THAT NOT WATER ALONE, BUT WINE MIXED WITH WATER, WAS TO BE
OFFERED; THAT BY WATER WAS DESIGNATED IN SCRIPTURE, BAPTISM, BUT CERTAINLY
NOT THE EUCHARIST. BY TYPES DRAWN FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT, THE USE OF WINE
IN THE SACRAMENT OF THE LORD'S BODY IS ILLUSTRATED; AND IT IS DECLARED THAT
BY THE SYMBOL OF WATER IS UNDERSTOOD THE CHRISTIAN CONGREGATION.
1. Cyprian to Caecilius his brother, greeting. Although I know, dearest
brother, that very many of the bishops who are set over the churches of the
Lord by divine condescension, throughout the whole world, maintain the plan
of evangelical truth, and of the tradition of the Lord, and do not by human
and novel institution depart from that which Christ our Master both
prescribed and did; yet since some, either by ignorance or simplicity(1) in
sanctifying the cup of the Lord, and in ministering to the people, do not
do that which Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, the founder and teacher of
this sacrifice, did and taught, I have thought it as well a religious as a
necessary thing to write to you this letter, that, if any one is still kept
in this error, he may behold the light of truth, and return to the root and
origin of the tradition of the Lord.(2) Nor must you think, dearest
brother, that I am writing my own thoughts or man's; or that I am boldly
assuming this to myself of my own voluntary will, since I always hold my
mediocrity with lowly and modest moderation. But when anything is
prescribed by the inspiration and command of God, it is necessary that a
faithful servant should obey the Lord, acquitted by all of assuming
anything arrogantly to himself, seeing that he is constrained to fear
offending the Lord unless he does what he is commanded.
2. Know then that I have been admonished that, in offering the cup,
the tradition of the Lord(2) must be observed, and that nothing must be
done by us but what the Lord first did on our behalf, as that the cup which
is offered in remembrance of Him should be offered mingled with wine. For
when Christ says, "I am the true vine."(3) the blood of Christ is assuredly
not water, but wine; neither can His blood by which we are redeemed and
quickened appear to be in the cup, when in the cup there is no wine whereby
the blood of Christ is shown forth, which is declared by the sacrament and
testimony of all the Scriptures.
3. For we find in Genesis also, in respect of the sacrament in Noe,
this same thing was to them a precursor and figure of the Lord's passion;
that he drank wine; that he was drunken; that he was made naked in his
household; that he was lying down with his thighs naked and exposed; that
the nakedness of the father was observed by his second son, and was told
abroad, but was covered by two, the eldest and the youngest; and other
matters which it is not necessary to follow out, since this is enough for
us to embrace alone, that Noe, setting forth a type of the future truth,
did not drink water, but wine, and thus expressed the figure of the passion
of the Lord.
4. Also in the priest Melchizedek we see prefigured the sacrament of
the sacrifice of the Lord, according to what divine Scripture testifies,
and says, "And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and
wine."(4) Now he was a priest of the most high God, and blessed Abraham.
And that Melchizedek bore a type of Christ, the Holy Spirit declares in the
Psalms, saying from the person of the Father to the Son: "Before the
morning star I begat Thee; Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of
Melchizedek;"(5) which order is assuredly this coming from that sacrifice
and thence descending; that Melchizedek was a priest of the most high God;
that he offered wine and bread; that he blessed Abraham. For who is more a
priest of the most high God than our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered a
sacrifice to God the Father, and offered that very same thing which
Melchizedek had offered, that is, bread and wine, to wit, His body and
blood? And with respect to Abraham, that blessing going before belonged to
our people. For if Abraham believed in God, and it was accounted unto him
for righteousness, assuredly whosoever believes in God and lives in faith
is found righteous, and already is blessed in faithful Abraham, and is set
forth as justified; as the blessed Apostle Paul proves, when he says,
"Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Ye
know, then, that they which are of faith, these are the children of
Abraham. But the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles
through faith, pronounced before to Abraham that all nations should be
blessed in him; therefore they who are of faith are blessed with faithful
Abraham."(6) Whence in the Gospel we find that "children of Abraham are
raised from stones, that is, are gathered from the Gentiles."(7) And when
the Lord praised Zacchaeus, He answered and said "This day is salvation
come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham."(8) ln
Genesis, therefore, that the benediction, in respect of Abraham by
Melchizedek the priest, might be duly celebrated, the figure of Christ's
sacrifice precedes, namely, as ordained in bread and wine; which thing the
Lord, completing and fulfilling, offered bread and the cup mixed with wine,
and so He who is the fulness of truth fulfilled the truth of the image
prefigured.
5. Moreover the Holy Spirit by Solomon shows before the type of the
Lord's sacrifice, making mention of the immolated victim, and of the bread
and wine, and, moreover, of the altar and of the apostles, and says,
"Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath underlaid her seven pillars; she
hath killed her victims; she hath mingled her wine in the chalice; she hath
also furnished her table: and she hath sent forth her servants, calling
together with a lofty announcement to her cup, saying, Whoso is simple, let
him turn to me; and to those that want understanding she hath said, Come,
eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled for you."(1) He
declares the wine mingled, that is, he foretells with prophetic voice the
cup of the Lord mingled with water and wine, that it may appear that that
was done in our Lord's passion which had been before predicted.
6. In the blessing of Judah also this same thing is signified, where
there also is expressed a figure of Christ, that He should have praise and
worship from his brethren; that He should press down the back of His
enemies yielding and fleeing, with the hands with which He bore the cross
and conquered death; and that He Himself is the Lion of the tribe of Judah,
and should couch sleeping in His passion, and should rise up, and should
Himself be the hope of the Gentiles. To which things divine Scripture adds,
and says, "He shall wash His garment in wine, and His clothing in the blood
of the grape."(2) But when the blood of the grape is mentioned, what else
is set forth than the wine of the cup of the blood of the Lord?
7. In Isaiah also the Holy Spirit testifies this same thing concerning
the Lord's passion, saying, "Wherefore are Thy garments red, and Thy
apparel as from the treading of the wine-press full and well trodden?"(3)
Can water make garments red? or is it water in the wine-press which is
trodden by the feet, or pressed out by the press? Assuredly, therefore,
mention is made of wine, that the Lord's blood may be understood, and that
which was afterwards manifested in the cup of the Lord might be foretold by
the prophets who announced it. The treading also, and pressure of the wine-
press, is repeatedly dwelt on; because just as the drinking of wine cannot
be attained to unless the bunch of grapes be first trodden and pressed, so
neither could we drink the blood of Christ unless Christ had first been
trampled upon and pressed, and had first drunk the cup of which He should
also give believers to drink.
8. But as often as water is named alone in the Holy Scriptures, baptism
is referred to, as we see intimated in Isaiah: "Remember not," says he,
"the former things, and consider not the things of old. Behold, I will do a
new thing, which shall now spring forth; and ye shall know it. I will even
make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the dry place, to give drink to
my elected people, my people whom I have purchased, that they might show
forth my praise."(4) There God foretold by the prophet, that among the
nations, in places which previously had been dry, rivers should afterwards
flow plenteously, and should provide water for the elected people of God,
that is, for those who were made sons of God by the generation of
baptism.(5) Moreover, it is again predicted and foretold before, that the
Jews, if they should thirst and seek after Christ, should drink with us,
that is, should attain the grace of baptism. "If they shall thirst," he
says, "He shall lead them through the deserts, shall bring forth water for
them out of the rock; the rock shall be cloven, and the water shall flow,
and my people shall drink;"(6) which is fulfilled in the Gospel, when
Christ, who is the Rock, is cloven by a stroke of the spear in His passion;
who also, admonishing what was before announced by the prophet, cries and
says, "If any man thirst, let him come and drink. He that believeth on me,
as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
water." And that it might be more evident that the Lord is speaking there,
not of the cup, but of baptism, the Scripture adds, saying, "But this spake
He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive."(7) For by
baptism the Holy Spirit is received; and thus by those who are baptized,
and have attained to the Holy Spirit, is attained the drinking of the
Lord's cup. And let it disturb no one, that when the divine Scrip-lure
speaks of baptism, it says that we thirst and drink, since the Lord also in
the Gospel says, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness;"(8) because what is received with a greedy and thirsting
desire is drunk more fully and plentifully. As also, in another place, the
Lord speaks to the Samaritan woman, saying, "Whosoever drinketh of this
water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall
give him, shall not thirst for ever."(9) By which is also signified the
very baptism of saving water, which indeed is once received, and is not
again repeated. But the cup of the Lord is always both thirsted for and
drunk in the Church.
9. Nor is there need of very many arguments, dearest brother, to prove
that baptism is always indicated by the appellation of water, and that thus
we ought to understand it, since the Lord, when He came, manifested the
truth of baptism and the cup in commanding that that faithful water, the
water of life eternal, should be given to believers in baptism, but,
teaching by the example of His own authority, that the cup should be
mingled with a union of wine and water.(1) For, taking the cup on the eve
of His passion, He blessed it, and gave it to His disciples, saying, "Drink
ye all of this; for this is my blood of the New Testament, which shall be
shed for many, for the remission of sins. I say unto you, I will not drink
henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day in which I shall drink
new wine with you in the kingdom of my Father."(2) In which portion we find
that the cup which the Lord offered was mixed, and that that was wine which
He called His blood. Whence it appears that the blood of Christ is not
offered if there be no wine in the cup, nor the Lord's sacrifice celebrated
with a legitimate consecration unless our oblation and sacrifice respond to
His passion. But how shall we drink the new wine of the fruit of the vine
with Christ in the kingdom of His Father, if in the sacrifice of God the
Father and of Christ we do not offer wine, nor mix the cup of the Lord by
the Lord's own tradition?
10. Moreover, the blessed Apostle Paul, chosen and sent by the Lord,
and appointed a preacher of the Gospel truth, lays down these very things
in his epistle, saying, "The Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was
betrayed, took bread; and when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said,
This is my body, which shall be given for you: do this in remembrance of
me. After the same manner also He took the cup, when he had supped, saying,
This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do, as oft as ye drink it,
in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup,
ye shall show forth the Lord's death until He come."(3) But if it is both
enjoined by the Lord, and the same thing is confirmed and delivered by His
apostle, that as often as we drink, we do in remembrance of the Lord the
same thing which the Lord also did, we find that what was commanded is not
observed by us, unless we also do what the Lord did; and that mixing the
Lord's cup in like manner we do not depart from the divine teaching; but
that we must not at all depart from the evangelical precepts, and that
disciples ought also to observe and to do the same things which the Master
both taught dud did. The blessed apostle in another place more earnestly
and strongly teaches, saying, "I wonder that ye are so soon removed from
Him that called you into grace, unto another gospel, which is not another;
but there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of
Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any otherwise than
that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before,
so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that
ye have received, let him be anathema."(4)
11. Since, then, neither the apostle himself nor an angel from heaven
can preach or teach any otherwise than Christ has once taught and His
apostles have announced, I wonder very much whence has originated this
practice, that, contrary to evangelical and apostolical discipline, water
is offered in some places in the Lord's cup, which water by itself cannot
express the blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit also is not silent in the
Psalms on the sacrament of this thing, when He makes mention of the Lord's
cup, and says, "Thy inebriating cup, how excellent it is!"(5) Now the cup
which inebriates is assuredly mingled with wine, for water cannot inebriate
anybody. And the cup of the Lord in such wise inebriates, as Noe also was
intoxicated drinking wine, in Genesis. But because the intoxication of the
Lord's cup and blood is not such as is the intoxication of the world's
wine, since the Holy Spirit said in the Psalm, "Thy inebriating cup," He
added, "how excellent it is," because doubtless the Lord's cup so
inebriates them that drink, that it makes them sober; that it restores
their minds to spiritual wisdom; that each one recovers from that flavour
of the world to the understanding of God; and in the same way, that by that
common wine the mind is dissolved, and the soul relaxed, and all sadness is
laid aside, so, when the blood of the Lord and the cup of salvation have
been drunk, the memory of the old man is laid aside, and there arises an
oblivion of the former worldly conversation, and the sorrowful and sad
breast which before was oppressed by tormenting sins is eased by the joy
of the divine mercy; because that only is able to rejoice him who drinks in
the Church which, when it is drunk, retains the Lord's truth.(6).
12. But how perverse and how contrary it is, that although the Lord at
the marriage made wine of water, we should make water of wine, when even
the sacrament of that thing ought to admonish and instruct us rather to
offer wine in the sacrifices of the Lord. For because among the Jews
there was a want of spiritual grace, wine also was wanting. For the
vineyard of the Lord of hosts was the house of Israel; but Christ, when
teaching and showing that the people of the Gentiles should succeed them,
and that by the merit of faith we should subsequently attain to the place
which the Jews had lost, of water made wine; that is, He showed that at
the marriage of Christ and the Church, as the Jews failed, the people of
the nations should rather flow together and assemble: for the divine
Scripture in the Apocalypse declares that the waters signify the people,
saying, "The waters which thou sawest, upon which the whore sitteth, are
peoples and multitudes, and nations of the Gentiles, and tongues,"(1) which
we evidently see to be contained also in the sacrament of the cup.
13. For because Christ bore us all, in that He also bore our sins, we
see that in the water is understood the people, but in the wine is showed
the blood of Christ. But when the water is mingled in the cup with wine,
the people is made one with Christ, and the assembly of believers is
associated and conjoined with Him on whom it believes; which association
and conjunction of water and wine is so mingled in the Lord's cup, that
that mixture cannot any more be separated. Whence, moreover, nothing can
separate the Church--that is, the people established in the Church,
faithfully and firmly persevering in that which they have believed--from
Christ, in such a way as to prevent their undivided love from always
abiding and adhering. Thus, therefore, in consecrating the cup of the Lord,
water alone cannot be offered, even as wine alone cannot be offered. For if
any one offer wine only, the blood of Christ is dissociated from us; but if
the water be alone, the people are dissociated from Christ; but when both
are mingled, and are joined with one another by a close union, there is
completed a spiritual and heavenly sacrament. Thus the cup of the Lord is
not indeed water alone, nor wine alone, unless each be mingled with the
other; just as, on the other hand, the body of the Lord cannot be flour
alone or water alone, unless both should be united and joined together and
compacted in the mass of one bread; in which very sacrament our people are
shown to be made one, so that in like manner as many grains, collected, and
ground, and mixed together into one mass, make one bread; so in Christ, who
is the heavenly bread, we may know that there is one body, with which our
number is joined and united.(2)
14. There is then no reason, dearest brother, for any one to think that
the custom of certain persons is to be followed, who have thought in thee
past that water alone should be offered in the cup of the Lord. For we must
inquire whom they themselves have followed. For if in the sacrifice which
Christ offered none is to be followed but Christ, assuredly it behoves us
to obey and do that which Christ did, and what He commanded to be done,
since He Himself says in the Gospel, "If ye do whatsoever I command you,
henceforth I call you not servants, but friends."(3) And that Christ alone
ought to be heard, the Father also testifies from heaven, saying, "This is
my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him."(4) Wherefore,
if Christ alone must be heard, we ought not to give heed to what another
before us may have I thought was to be done, but what Christ, who is before
all, first did. Neither is it becoming to follow the practice of man, but
the truth of God; since God speaks by Isaiah the prophet, and says, "In
vain do they worship me, teaching the commandments and doctrines of
men."(5) And again the Lord in the Gospel repeals this same saying, and
says, "Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own
tradition."(6) Moreover, in another place He establishes it, saying,
"Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men
so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven."(7) But if we
may not break even the least of the Lord's commandments, how much rather is
it forbidden to infringe such important ones, so great, so pertaining to
the very sacrament of our Lord's passion and our own redemption, or to
change it by human tradition into anything else than what was divinely
appointed! For if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the chief
priest of God the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the
Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself,
certainly that priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates
that which Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the
Church to God the Father, when he proceeds to offer it according to what he
sees Christ Himself to have offered.
15.But the discipline of all religion and truth is overturned,
unless what is spiritually prescribed be faithfully observed; unless
indeed any one should fear in the morning sacrifices,(8) lest by the taste
of wine he should be redolent of the blood of Christ. Therefore thus the
brotherhood is beginning even to be kept back from the passion of Christ in
persecutions, by learning in the offerings to be disturbed concerning His
blood and His blood-shedding. Moreover, however, the Lord says in the
Gospel, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, of him shall the Son of man be
ashamed."(9) And the apostle also speaks, saying, "If I pleased men, I
should not be the servant of Christ."(10) But how can we shed our blood for
Christ, who blush to drink the blood of Christ?
16. Does any one perchance flatter himself with this notion, that
although in the morning, water alone is seen to be offered, yet when we
come to supper we offer the mingled cup? But when we sup, we cannot call
the people together to our banquet, so as to celebrate the truth of the
sacrament in the presence of all the brotherhood.(1) But still it was not
in the morning, but after supper, that the Lord offered the mingled cup.
Ought we then to celebrate the Lord's cup after supper, that so by
continual repetition of the Lord's supper(2) we may offer the mingled cup?
It behoved Christ to offer about the evening of the day, that the very hour
of sacrifice might show the setting and the evening of the world; as it is
written in Exodus, "And all the people of the synagogue of the children of
Israel shall kill it in the evening."(3) And again in the Psalms, "Let the
lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice."(4) But we celebrate the
resurrection of the Lord in the morning.
17. And because we make mention of His passion in all sacrifices (for
the Lord's passion is the sacrifice which we offer), we ought to do nothing
else than what He did. For Scripture says, "For as often as ye eat this
bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death till He
come."(5) As often, therefore, as we offer the cup in commemoration of the
Lord and of His passion, let us do what it is known the Lord did. And let
this conclusion be reached, dear-est brother: if from among our
predecessors any have either by ignorance or simplicity not observed and
kept this which the Lord by His example and teaching has instructed us to
do, he may, by the mercy of the Lord, have pardon granted to his
simplicity. But we cannot be pardoned who are now admonished and instructed
by the Lord to offer the cup of the Lord mingled with wine according to
what the Lord offered, and to direct letters to our colleagues also about
this, so that the evangelical law and the Lord's tradition may be
everywhere kept, and there be no departure from what Christ both taught and
did.
18. To neglect these things any further, and to persevere in the former
error, what is it else than to fall under the Lord's rebuke, who in the l
psalm reproveth, and says, "What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or
that thou shouldest take my covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest
instruction and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a thief,
thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers."(6) For
to declare the righteousness and the covenant of the Lord, and not to do
the same that the Lord did, what else is it than to cast away His words and
to despise the Lord's instruction, to commit not earthly, but spiritual
thefts and adulteries? While any one is stealing from evangelical truth the
words and doings of our Lord, he is corrupting and adulterating the divine
precepts, as it is written in Jeremiah. He says, "What is the chaff to the
wheat? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, who
steal my words every one froth his neighbour, and cause my people to err by
their lies and by their lightness."(7) Also in the same prophet, in another
place, He says, "She committed adultery with stocks and stones, and yet for
all this she turned not unto me."(8) That this theft and adultery may not
fall unto us also, we ought to be anxiously careful, and fearfully and
religiously to watch. For if we are priests of God and of Christ, I do not
know any one whom we ought rather to follow than God and Christ, since He
Himself emphatically says in the Gospel, "I am the light of the world; he
that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of
life."(9) Lest therefore we should walk in darkness, we ought to follow
Christ, and to observe his precepts, because He Himself told His apostles
in another place, as He sent them forth, "All power is given unto me in
heaven and earth. Go, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."(10) Wherefore,
if we wish to walk in the light of Christ, let us not depart from His
precepts and monitions, giving thanks that, while He instructs for the
future what we ought to do, He pardons for the past wherein we in our
simplicity have erred. And because already His second coming draws near to
us, His benign and liberal condescension is more and more illuminating our
hearts with the light of truth.(11)
19. Therefore it befits our religion, and our fear, and the place
itself, and the office of our priesthood, dearest brother, in mixing and
offering the cup of the Lord, to keep the truth of the Lord's tradition,
and, on the warning of the Lord, to correct that which seems with some to
have been erroneous; so that when He shall begin to come in His brightness
and heavenly majesty, He may find that we keep what He admonished us; that
we observe what He taught; that we do what He did.(1) I bid you, dearest
brother, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LXIII.(2)
TO EPICTETUS AND TO THE CONGREGATION OF ASSURAE, CONCERNING FORTUNATIANUS,
FORMERLY THEIR BISHOP.
ARGUMENT.--HE WARNS EPICTETUS AND THE CONGREGATION OF THE ASSURITANS NOT TO
ALLOW FORTUNATIANUS, A LAPSER, BUT THEIR FORMER BISHOP, TO RETURN TO HIS
EPISCOPATE, AS WELL FOR OTHER REASONS AS BECAUSE IT HAD BEEN DECREED THAT
LAPSED BISHOPS SHOULD NOT BE ADMITTED TO THEIR FORMER RANK.
1. Cyprian to Epictetus his brother, and to the people established at
Assurae, greeting. I was gravely and grievously disturbed, dearest
brethren, at learning that Fortunatianus, formerly bishop among you, after
the sad lapse of his fall, was now wishing to act as if he were sound, and
beginning to claim for himself the episcopate. Which thing distressed me;
in the first place, on his own account, who, wretched man that he is, being
either wholly blinded in the darkness of the devil, or deceived by the
sacrilegious persuasion of certain persons; when he ought to be making
atonement, and to give himself to the work of entreating the Lord night and
day, by tears, and supplications, and prayers, dares still to claim to
himself the priesthood which he has betrayed, as if it were right, from the
altars of the devil, to approach to the altar of God. Or as if he would not
provoke a greater wrath and indignation of the Lord against himself in the
day of judgment, who, not being able to be a guide to the brethren in faith
and virtue, stands forth as a teacher in perfidy, in boldness, and in
temerity; and he who has not taught the brethren to stand bravely in the
battle, teaches those who are conquered and prostrate not even to ask for
pardon; although the Lord says, "To them have ye poured a drink-offering,
and to them have ye offered a meat-offering. Shall I not be angry for these
things? saith the Lord."(3) And in another place, "He that sacrificeth to
any god, save unto the Lord only, shall be destroyed."(4) Moreover, the
Lord again speaks, and says, "They have worshipped those whom their own
fingers have made: and the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth
himself: and I will not forgive them."(5) In the Apocalypse also, we read
the anger of the Lord threatening, and saying, "If any man worship the
beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand,
the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God mixed in the cup of
His anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke
of their torments shall ascend up for ever and ever; neither shall they
have rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image."(6)
2. Since, therefore, the Lord threatens these torments, these
punishments in the day of judgment, to those who obey the devil and
sacrifice to idols, how does he think that he can act as a priest of God
who has obeyed and served the priests of the devil; or how does he think
that his hand can be transferred to the sacrifice of God and the prayer of
the Lord which has been captive to sacrilege and to crime, when in the
sacred Scriptures God forbids the priests to approach to sacrifice even if
they have been in lighter guilt; and says in Leviticus: "The man in whom
there shall be any blemish or stain shall not approach to offer gifts to
God?"(7) Also in Exodus: "And let the priests which come near to the Lord
God sanctify themselves, lest perchance the Lord forsake them."(8) And
again: "And when they come near to minister at the altar of the Holy One,
they shall not bring sin upon them, lest they die."(9) Those, therefore,
who have brought grievous sins upon themselves, that is, who, by
sacrificing to idols, have offered sacrilegious sacrifices, cannot claim to
themselves the priesthood of God, nor make any prayer for their brethren in
His sight; since it is written in the Gospel, "God heareth not a sinner;
but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He
heareth."(10) Nevertheless the profound gloom of the falling darkness has
so blinded the hearts of some, that they receive no light from the
wholesome precepts, but, once turned away from the direct path of the true
way, they are hurried headlong and suddenly by the night and error of their
sins.(11)
3. Nor is it wonderful if now those reject our counsels, or the Lord's
precepts, who have denied the Lord. They desire gifts, and offerings, and
gain, for which formerly they watched insatiably. They still long also for
suppers and banquets, whose debauch they belched forth in the indigestion
lately left to the day, most manifestly proving now that they did not
before serve religion, but rather their belly and gain, with profane
cupidity. Whence also we perceive and believe that this rebuke has come
from God's searching out, that they might not continue to stand at the
altar; and any further, as unchaste persons, to have to do with modesty; as
perfidious, to have to do with faith; as profane, with religion; as
earthly, with things divine; as sacrilegious, with things sacred. That such
persons may not return again to the profanation of the altar, and to the
contagion of the brethren, we must keep watch with all our powers, and
strive with all our strength, that, as far as in us lies, we may keep them
back from this audacity of their wickedness, that they attempt not any
longer to act in the character of priest; who, cast down to the lowest pit
of death, have gone headlong with the weight of a greater destruction
beyond the lapses of the laity.
4. But if, among these insane persons, their incurable madness shall
continue, and, with the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit, the blindness which
has begun shall remain in its deep night, our counsel will be to separate
individual brethren from their deceitfulness; and, lest any one should run
into the toils of their error, to separate them from their contagion. Since
neither can the oblation be consecrated where the Holy Spirit is not; nor
can the Lord avail to any one by the prayers and supplications of one who
himself has done despite to the Lord. But if Fortunatianus, either by the
blindness induced by the devil forgetful of his crime, or become a
minister and servant of the devil for deceiving the brotherhood, shall
persevere in this his madness, do you, as far as in you lies, strive, and
in this darkness of the rage of the devil, recall the minds of the brethren
from error, that they may not easily consent to the madness of another;
that they may not make themselves partakers in the crimes of abandoned men;
but being sound, let them maintain the constant tenor of their salvation,
and of the integrity preserved and guarded by them.(1)
5. Let the lapsed, however, who acknowledge the greatness of their sin,
not depart from entreating the Lord, nor forsake the Catholic Church, which
has been appointed one and alone by the Lord; but, continuing in their
atonements and entreating the Lord's mercy, let them knock at the door of
the Church, that they may be received there where once they were, and may
return to Christ from whom they have departed, and not listen to those who
deceive them with a fallacious and deadly seduction; since it is written,
"Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh
the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience; be not ye therefore
partakers with them."(2) Therefore let no one associate himself with the
contumacious, and those who do not fear God, and those who entirely with
draw from the Church. But if any one should be impatient of entreating the
Lord who is offended, and should be unwilling to obey us, but should follow
desperate and abandoned men, he must take the blame to himself when the
day of judgment shall come. For how shall he be able in that day to
entreat the Lord, who has both before this denied Christ, and now also the
Church of Christ, and not obeying bishops sound and wholesome and living,
has made himself an associate and a partaker with the dying? I bid you,
dearest brethren and longed-for, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LXIV.(3)
TO ROGATIANUS, CONCERNING THE DEACON WHO CONTENDED AGAINST THE BISHOP.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN WARNS THE BISHOP ROGATIANUS TO RESTRAIN THE PRIDE OF THE
DEACON WHO HAD PROVOKED HIM WITH HIS INSULTS, AND TO COMPEL HIM TO REPENT
OF HIS BOLDNESS; TAKING OCCASION TO REPEAT ONCE MORE WHATEVER HE HAS SAID
IN THE PREVIOUS LETTER, ABOUT THE SACERDOTAL OR EPISCOPAL POWER.(4)
1. Cyprian to his brother Rogatianus, greeting. I and my colleagues who
were present with me were deeply and grievously distressed, dearest
brother, on reading your letter in which you complained of your deacon,
that, forgetful of your priestly station, and unmindful of his own office
and ministry, he had provoked you by his insults and injuries. And you
indeed have acted worthily, and with your accustomed humility towards us,
in rather complaining of him to us; although you have power, according to
the vigour of the episcopate and the authority of your See, whereby you
might be justified on him at once, assured that all we your colleagues
would regard it as a matter of satisfaction, whatever you should do by your
priestly power in respect of an insolent deacon, as you have in respect of
men of this kind divine commands. Inasmuch as the Lord God says in
Deuteronomy, "And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken
unto the priest or the judge, whoever he shall be in those days, that man
shall die; and all the people, when they hear, shall fear, and shall no
more do impiously."(5) And that we may know that this voice of God came
forth with His true and highest majesty to honour and avenge His priests;
when three of the ministers(1)--Korah, Dathan, and Abiram--dared to deal
proudly, and to exalt their neck against Aaron the priest, and to equal
themselves with the priest set over them; they were swallowed up and
devoured by the opening of the earth, and so immediately suffered the
penalty of their sacrilegious audacity. Nor they alone, but also two
hundred and fifty others, who were their companions in boldness, were
consumed by a fire breaking forth from the Lord, that it might be proved
that God's priests are avenged by Him who makes priests. In the book of
Kings also, when Samuel the priest was despised by the Jewish people on
account of his age, as you are now, the Lord in wrath exclaimed, and said,
"They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me."(2) And that He
might avenge this, He set over them Saul as a king, who afflicted them with
grievous injuries, and trod on the people, and pressed down their pride
with all insults and penalties, that the despised priest might he avenged
by divine vengeance on a proud people.
2. Moreover also Solomon, established in the Holy Spirit, testifies and
teaches what is the priestly authority and power, saying, "Fear the Lord
with all thy soul, and reverence His priests;"(3) and again, "Honour God
with all thy soul, and honour His priests."(4) Mindful of which precepts,
the blessed Apostle Paul, according to what we read in the Acts of the
Apostles, when it was said to him, "Revilest thou thus God's high priest?"
answered and said, "I wist not, brethren, that he was the high priest; for
it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people."(5)
Moreover, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, our King, and Judge, and God, even
to the very day, of His passion observed the honour to priests and high
priests, although they observed neither the fear of God nor the
acknowledgment of Christ. For when He had cleansed the leper, He said to
him, "Go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift."(6) With that
humility which taught us also to he humble, He still called him a priest
whom He knew to be sacrilegious; also under the very sting of His passion,
when He had received a blow, and it was said to Him, "Answerest thou the
high priest so?" He said nothing reproachfully against the person of the
high priest, but rather maintained His own innocence saying, "If I have
spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou
me?"(7) All which things were therefore done by Him humbly and patiently,
that we might have an example of humility and patience; for He taught that
true priests were lawfully and fully to be honoured, in showing Himself
such as He was in respect of false priests.
3. But deacons ought to remember that the Lord chose apostles, that is,
bishops and overseers; while apostles appointed for themselves deacons(8)
after the ascent of the Lord into heaven, as ministers of their episcopacy
and of the Church. But if we may dare anything against God who makes
bishops, deacons may also dare against us by whom they are made; and
therefore it behoves the deacon of whom you write to repent of his
audacity, and to acknowledge the honour of the priest, and to satisfy the
bishop set over him with full humility. For these things are the beginnings
of heretics, and the origins and endeavours of evil-minded schismatics;--to
please themselves, and with swelling haughtiness to despise him who is set
over them. Thus they depart from the Church--thus a profane altar is set
up outside--thus they rebel against the peace of Christ, and the
appointment and the unity of God. But if, further, he shall harass and
provoke you with his insults, you must exercise against him the power of
your dignity, by either deposing him or excommunicating him. For if the
Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, said, "Let no man despise thy youth,"(9)
how much rather must it he said by your colleagues to you, "Let no man
despise thy age? And since you have written, that one has associated
himself with that same deacon of yours, and is a partaker of his pride and
boldness, you may either restrain or excommunicate him also, and any others
that may appear of a like disposition, and act against God's priest.
Unless, as we exhort anti advise, they should rather perceive that they
have sinned and make satisfaction, and suffer us to keep our own purpose;
for we rather ask and desire to overcome the reproaches and injuries of
individuals by clemency and patience, than to punish them by our priestly
power.(10) I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LXV.(11)
TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE ABIDING AT FURNI, ABOUT VICTOR, WHO HAD MADE THE
PRESBYTER FAUSTINUS A GUARDIAN.
ARGUMENT.--SINCE, AGAINST THE DECISION OF A COUNCIL OF BISHOPS, GEMINIUS
VICTOR HAD NAMED IN HIS WILL GEMINIUS FAUSTINUS THE PRESBYTER AS HIS
GUARDIAN OR CURATOR, HE FORBIDS THAT OFFERING SHOULD BE MADE FOR HIM, OR
THAT THE SACRIFICE SHOULD BE CELEBRATED FOR HIS REPOSE, INFERRING BY THE
WAY, FROM THE EXAMPLE OF THE LEVITICAL TRIBE, THAT CLERICS OUGHT NOT TO MIX
THEMSELVES UP IN SECULAR CARES.
1. Cyprian to the presbyters, and deacons, and people abiding at Furni,
greeting. I and my colleagues who were present with me were greatly
disturbed, dearest brethren, as were also our fellow-presbyters who sate
with us, when we were made aware that Geminius Victor, our brother, when
departing this life, had named Geminius Faustinus the presbyter executor to
his will, although long since it was decreed, in a council of the bishops,
that no one should appoint any of the clergy and the ministers of God
executor or guardian(1) by his will, since every one honoured by the divine
priesthood, and ordained in the clerical service, ought to serve only the
altar and sacrifices, and to have leisure for prayers and supplications.
For it is written: "No man that warreth for God entangleth himself with the
affairs of this life, that he may please Him to whom he has pledged
himself."(2) As this is said of all men, how much rather ought those not to
be bound by worldly anxieties and involvements, who, being busied with
divine and spiritual things, are not able to withdraw from the Church, and
to have leisure for earthly and secular doings! The form of which
ordination and engagement the Levites formerly observed under the law, so
that when the eleven tribes divided the land and shared the possessions,
the Levitical tribe, which was left free for the temple and the altar, and
for the divine ministries, received nothing from that portion of the
division; but while others cultivated the soil, that portion only
cultivated the favour of God, and received the tithes from the eleven
tribes, for their food and maintenance, from the fruits which grew. All
which was done by divine authority and arrangement, so that they who waited
on divine services might in no respect be called away, nor be compelled to
consider or to transact secular business. Which plan and rule is now
maintained in respect of the clergy, that they who are promoted by clerical
ordination in the Church of the Lord may be called off in no respect from
the divine administration, nor be tied down by worldly anxieties and
matters; but in the honour of the brethren who contribute, receiving as it
were tenths of the fruits, they may not withdraw from the altars and
sacrifices, but may serve day and might in heavenly and spiritual things.
2. The bishops our predecessors religiously considering this, and
wholesomely providing for it, decided that no brother departing should name
a cleric for executor or guardian; and if any one should do this, no
offering should be made for him, nor any sacrifice be celebrated for his
repose.(3) For he does not deserve to be named at the altar of God in the
prayer of the priests, who has wished to call away the priests and
ministers from the altar. And therefore, since Victor, contrary to the rule
lately made in council by the priests, has dared to appoint Geminius
Faustinus, a presbyter, his executor, it is not allowed that any offering
be made by you for his repose, nor any prayer be made in the church in his
name, that so the decree of the priests, religiously and needfully made,
may be kept by us; and, at the same time, an example be given to the rest
of the brethren, that no one should call away to secular anxieties the
priests and ministers of God who are occupied with the service of His altar
and Church. For care will probably be taken in time to come that this
happen not with respect to the person of clerics any more, if what has now
been done has been punished. I bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily
farewell.
EPISTLE LXVI.(4)
TO FATHER STEPHANUS, CONCERNING MARCIANUS OF ARLES, WHO HAD JOINED HIMSELF
TO NOVATIAN.
ARGUMENT.--AS MARCIANUS, BISHOP OF ARLES, WHEN HE FOLLOWED THE SECT OF
NOVATIAN, HAD SEDUCED MANY, AND BY HIS SCHISM HAD
SEPARATED HIMSELF FROM THE COMMUNION OF THE REST OF THE BISHOPS, CYPRIAN
WARNS STEPHANUS, THAT HE SHOULD BY ANNOUNCING THE EXCOMMUNICATION OF THE
OFFENDER, ALIKE BY ROME AND CARTHAGE, ENABLE THE CHURCH AT ARLES, TO ELECT
ANOTHER IN HIS PLACE; AND THAT SO PEACE MIGHT BE GRANTED, AS WELL TO THE
LAPSED AS TO THOSE SEDUCED BY HIM, UPON THEIR REPENTANCE, AND A RETURN TO
THE CHURCH CONCEDED TO THEM.
1. Cyprian to his brother Stephen, greeting. Faustinus our colleague,
abiding at Lyons, has once and again written to me, dearest brother,
informing me of those things which also I certainly know to have been told
to you, as well by him as by others our fellow-bishops established in the
same province, that Marcianus, who abides at Aries, has associated himself
with Novatian, and has departed from the unity of the Catholic Church, and
from the agreement of our body and priesthood, holding that most extreme
depravity of heretical presumption, that the comforts and aids of divine
love and paternal tenderness are closed to the servants of God who repent,
and mourn, and knock at the gate of the Church with tears, and groans, and
grief; and that those who are wounded are not admitted for the soothing of
their wounds, but that, forsaken without hope of peace and communion, they
must be thrown to become the prey of wolves and the booty of the devil;
which matter, dearest brother, it is our business to advise for and to aid
in, since we who consider the divine clemency, and hold the balance in
governing the Church, do thus exhibit the rebuke of vigour to sinners in
such a way as that, nevertheless, we do not refuse the medicine of divine
goodness and mercy in raising the lapsed and healing the wounded.
2. Wherefore it behoves you(1) to write a very copious letter to our
fellow-bishops appointed in Gaul, not to suffer any longer that Marcian,
froward and haughty, and hostile to the divine mercy and to the salvation
of the brotherhood, should insult our assembly, because he does not yet
seem to be excommunicated by us;(2) in that he now for a long time boasts
and announces that, adhering to Novatian, and following his frowardness, he
has separated himself from our communion; although Novatian himself, whom
he follows, has formerly been excommunicated, and judged an enemy to the
Church; and when he sent ambassadors to us into Africa, asking to be
received into our communion, he received back word from a council of
several priests who were here present, that he himself had excluded
himself, and could not by any of us be received into communion, as he had
attempted to erect a profane altar, and to set up an adulterous throne, and
to offer sacrilegious sacrifices opposed to the true priest; while the
Bishop Cornelius was ordained in the Catholic Church by the judgment of
God, and by the suffrages of the clergy and people. Therefore, if he were
willing to return to a right mind, and to come to himself, he should repent
and return to the Church as a suppliant. How vain it is, dearest brother,
when Novatian has lately been repulsed and rejected, and excommunicated by
God's priests throughout the whole world, for us still to suffer his
flatterers now to jest with us, and to judge of the majesty and dignity of
the Church!
3. Let letters be directed by you into the province and to the people
abiding at Arles, by which, Marcian being excommunicated, another may be
substituted in his place, and Christ's flock, which even to this day is
contemned as scattered and wounded by him, may be gathered together. Let it
suffice that many of our brethren have departed in these late years in
those parts without peace; and certainly let the rest who remain be helped,
who groan both day and night, and beseeching the divine and fatherly mercy,
entreat the comfort of our succour. For, for that reason, dearest brother,
the body of priests is abundantly large, joined together by the bond of
mutual concord, and the link of unity; so that if any one of our college
should try to originate heresy, and to lacerate and lay waste Christ's
flock, others may help, and as it were, as useful and merciful shepherds,
gather together the Lord's sheep into the flock. For what if any harbour in
the sea shall begin to be mischievous and dangerous to ships, by the breach
of its defences; do not the navigators direct their ships to other
neighbouring ports where there is a safe(3) and practicable entrance, and a
secure station? Or if, on the road, any inn should begin to be beset and
occupied by robbers, so that whoever should enter would be caught by the
attack of those who lie in wait there; do not the travellers, as soon as
this its character is discovered, seek other houses of entertainment on the
road, which shall be safer, where the lodging is trustworthy, and the inns
safe for the travellers? And this ought now to be the case with us, dearest
brother,(4) that we should receive to us with ready and kindly humanity our
brethren, who, tossed on the rocks of Marcian,(5) are seeking the secure
harbours of the Church; and that we afford such a place of entertainment
for the travellers as is that in the Gospel, in which those who are wounded
and maimed by robbers may be received and cherished, and protected by the
host.
4. For what is a greater or a more worthy care of overseers, than to
provide by diligent solicitude and wholesome medicine for cherishing and
preserving the sheep? since the Lord speaks, and says, "The diseased have
ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither
have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that
which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost. And my
sheep were scattered because there is no shepherd; and they became meat to
all the beasts of the field, and none did search or seek after them.
Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I
will require my flock at their hands, and cause them to cease from feeding
the flock; neither shall they feed them any more: for I will deliver them
from their mouth, and I will feed them with judgment."(1) Since therefore
the Lord thus threatens such shepherds by whom the Lord's sheep are
neglected and perish, what else ought we to do, dearest brother, than to
exhibit full diligence in gathering together and restoring the sheep of
Christ, and to apply the medicine of paternal affection to cure the wounds
of the lapsed, since the Lord also in the Gospel warns, and says, "They
that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick?"(2) For
although we are many shepherds, yet we feed one flock,(3) and ought to
collect and cherish all the sheep which Christ by His blood and passion
sought for; nor ought we to suffer our suppliant and mourning brethren to
be cruelly despised and trodden down by the haughty presumption of some,
since it is written, "But the man that is proud and boastful shall bring
nothing at all to perfection, who has enlarged his soul as hell."(4) And
the Lord, in His Gospel, blames and condemns men of that kind, saying, "Ye
are they which justify yourselves before men, but God knoweth your hearts:
for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight Of
God."(5) He says that those are execrable and detestable who please
themselves, who, swelling and inflated, arrogantly assume anything to
themselves. Since then Marcian has begun to be of these, and, allying
himself with Novatian, has stood forth as the opponent of mercy and love,
let him not pronounce sentence, but receive it; and let him not so act as
if he himself were to judge of the college of priests, since he himself is
judged by all the priests.
5. For the glorious honour of our predecessors, the blessed martyrs
Cornelius and Lucius, must be maintained, whose memory as we hold in
honour, much more ought you, dearest brother, to honour and cherish with
your weight and authority, since you have become their vicar and
successor.(6) For they, full of the Spirit of God, and established in a
glorious martyrdom, judged that peace should be granted to the lapsed, and
that when penitence was undergone, the reward of peace and communion was
not to be denied; and this they attested by their letters, and we all
everywhere and entirely have judged the same thing. For there could not be
among us a diverse feeling in whom there was one spirit; and therefore it
is manifest that he does not hold the truth of the Holy Spirit with the
rest, whom we observe to think differently. Intimate plainly to us who has
been substituted at Arles in the place of Marcian, that we may know to whom
to direct our brethren, and to whom we ought to write. I bid you, dearest
brother, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LXVII.(7)
TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE ABIDING IN SPAIN, CONCERNING BASILIDES AND
MARTIAL.
ARGUMENT.--BASILIDES AND MARTIAL, BISHOPS, HAVING LAPSED AND BECOME
CONTAMINATED BY THE CERTIFICATES OF IDOLATRY, CYPRIAN WITH HIS FELLOW-
BISHOPS PRAISES THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE OF SPAIN THAT THEY HAD SUBSTITUTED IN
THEIR PLACE BY A LEGITIMATE ELECTION SABINUS AND FELIX; ESPECIALLY AS,
ACCORDING TO THE DECISION OF CORNELIUS AND HIS COLLEAGUES, LAPSED BISHOPS
MIGHT INDEED BE RECEIVED TO REPENTANCE, BUT WERE PROHIBITED FROM THE
PRIESTLY HONOUR. MOREOVER, HE ALLUDES BY THE WAY TO CERTAIN MATTERS ABOUT
THE ANCIENT RITE OF EPISCOPAL ELECTION. THE CONTEXT INDICATES THAT THIS WAS
WRITTEN DURING THE EPISCOPATE OF STEPHEN.
1. Cyprian, Caecilius, Primus, Polycarp, Nicomedes, Lucilianus,
Successus, Sedatus, Fortunatus, Januarius, Secundinus, Pomponius, Honora-
tus, Victor, Aurelius, Sattius, Petrus, another Januarius, Saturninus,
another Aurelius, Venantius, Quietus, Rogatianus, Tenax, Felix, Faustinus,
Quintus, another Saturninus, Lucius, Vincentius, Libosus, Geminius,
Marcellus, Iambus, Adelphius, Victoricus, and Paulus, to Felix the
presbyter, and to the peoples abiding at Legio(8) and Asturica,(9) also to
Laelius the deacon, and the people abiding at Emerita,(10) brethren in the
Lord, greeting. When we had come together, dearly beloved brethren, we read
your letters, which according to the integrity of your faith and your fear
of God you wrote to us by Felix and Sabinus our fellow-bishops, signifying
that Basilides and Martial, being stained with the certificates of
idolatry, and bound with the consciousness of wicked crimes, ought not to
hold the episcopate and administer the priesthood of God; and you desired
an answer to be written to you again concerning these things, and your
solicitude, no less just than needful, to be relieved either by the comfort
or by the help of our judgment. Nevertheless to this your desire not so
much our counsels as the divine precepts reply, in which it is long since
bidden by the voice of Heaven and prescribed by the law of God, who and
what sort of persons ought to serve the altar and to celebrate the divine
sacrifices. For in Exodus God speaks to Moses, and warns him, saying, "Let
the priests which come near to the Lord God sanctify themselves, lest the
Lord forsake them."(1) And again: "And when they come near to the altar of
the Holy One to minister they shall not bring sin upon them, lest they
die."(2) Also in Leviticus the Lord commands and says, "Whosoever hath any
spot or blemish upon him, shall not approach to offer gifts to God."(3)
2. Since these things are announced and are made plain to us, it is
necessary that our obedience should wait upon the divine precepts; nor in
matters of this kind can human indulgence accept any man's person, or yield
anything to any one, when the divine prescription has interfered, and
establishes a law. For we ought not to be forgetful what the Lord spoke to
the Jews by Isaiah the prophet, rebuking, and indignant that they had
despised the divine precepts and followed human doctrines. "This people,"
he says, honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is widely removed
from me; but in vain do they worship me, teaching the doctrines and
commandments of men."(4) This also the Lord repeats in the Gospel, and
says, "Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may establish your own
tradition."(5) Having which things before our eyes, and solicitously and
religiously considering them, we ought in the ordinations of priests to
choose none but unstained and upright ministers,(6) who, holily and
worthily offering sacrifices to God, may be heard in the prayers which they
make for the safety of the Lord's people, since it is written, "God heareth
not a sinner; but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will,
him He heareth."(7) On which account it is fitting, that with full
diligence and sincere investigation those should be chosen for God's
priesthood whom it is manifest God will hear.
3. Nor let the people flatter themselves that they can be free from the
contagion of sin, while communicating with a priest who is a sinner, and
yielding their consent to the unjust and unlawful episcopacy of their
overseer, when the divine reproof by Hosea the prophet threatens, and says,
"Their sacrifices shall be as the bread of mourning; all that eat thereof
shall be polluted;"(8) teaching manifestly and showing that all are
absolutely bound to the sin who have been contaminated by the sacrifice of
a profane and unrighteous priest. Which, moreover, we find to be manifested
also in Numbers, when Korah, and Dathan, and Abiram Claimed for themselves
the power of sacrificing in opposition to Aaron the priest. There also the
Lord commanded by Moses that the people should be separated from them,
lest, being associated with the wicked, themselves also should be bound
closely in the same wickedness. "Separate yourselves," said He, "from the
tents of these wicked and hardened men, and touch not those things which
belong to them, lest ye perish together in their sins."(9) On which account
a people obedient to the Lord's precepts, and fearing God, ought to
separate themselves from a sinful prelate, and not to associate themselves
with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest, especially since they
themselves have the power either of choosing worthy priests, or of
rejecting unworthy ones.
4. Which very thing, too, we observe to come from divine authority,
that the priest should be chosen in the presence of the people under the
eyes of all, and should be approved worthy and suitable by public judgment
and testimony; as in the book of Numbers the Lord commanded Moses, saying,
"Take Aaron thy brother, and Eleazar his son, and place them in the mount,
in the presence of all the assembly, and strip Aaron of his garments, and
put them upon Eleazar his son; and let Aaron die there, and be added to his
people."(10) God commands a priest to be appointed in the presence of all
the assembly; that is, He instructs and shows that the ordination of
priests ought not to be solemnized except with the knowledge of the people
standing near, that in the presence of the people either the crimes of the
wicked may be disclosed, or the merits of the good may be declared, and the
ordination, which shall have been examined by the suffrage and judgment of
all, may be just and legitimate.(11) And this is subsequently observed,
according to divine instruction, in the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter
speaks to the people of ordaining an apostle in the place of Judas.
"Peter," it says, "stood up in the midst of the disciples, and the
multitude were in one place."(12) Neither do we observe that this was
regarded by the apostles only in the ordinations of bishops and priests,
but also in those of deacons, of which matter itself also it is written in
their Acts: "And they twelve called together," it says, "the whole
congregation of the disciples, and said to them;"(1) which was done so
diligently and carefully, with the calling together of the whole of the
people, surely for this reason, that no unworthy person might creep into
the ministry of the altar, or to the office of a priest. For that unworthy
persons are sometimes ordained, not according to the will of God, but
according to human presumption, and that those things which do not come of
a legitimate and righteous ordination are displeasing to God, God Himself
manifests by Hosea the prophet, saying, "They have set up for themselves a
king, but not by me."(2)
5. For which reason you must diligently observe and keep the practice
delivered from divine tradition and apostolic observance, which is also
maintained among us, and almost throughout all the provinces;(3) that for
the proper celebration of ordinations all the neighbouring bishops of the
same province should assemble with that people for which a prelate is
ordained. And the bishop should be chosen in the presence of the people,
who have most fully known the life of each one, and have looked into the
doings of each one as respects his habitual conduct. And this also, we see,
was done by you in the ordination of our colleague Sabinus; so that, by the
suffrage of the whole brotherhood,(4) and by the sentence of the bishops
who had assembled in their presence, and who had written letters to you
concerning him, the episcopate was conferred upon him, and hands were
imposed on him in the place of Basilides. Neither can it rescind an
ordination rightly perfected, that Basilides, after the detection of his
crimes, and the baring of his conscience even by his own confession, went
to Rome and deceived Stephen our colleague, placed at a distance, and
ignorant of what had been done, and of the truth, to canvass that he might
be replaced unjustly in the episcopate from which he had been righteously
deposed.(5) The result of this is, that the sins of Basilides are not so
much abolished as enhanced, inasmuch as to his former sins he has also
added the crime of deceit and circumvention. For he is not so much to be
blamed who has been through heedlessness surprised by fraud, as he is to be
execrated who has fraudulently taken him by surprise. But if Basilides
could deceive men, he cannot deceive God, since it is written, "God is not
mocked."(6) But neither can deceit advantage Martialis, in such a way as
that he who also is involved in great crimes should hold his bishopric,
since the apostle also warns, and says, "A bishop must be blameless, as the
steward of God."(7)
6. Wherefore, since as ye have written, dearly beloved brethren, and as
Felix and Sabinus our colleagues affirm, and as another Felix of Caesar
Augusta,(8) a maintainer of the faith and a defender of the truth,
signifies in his letter, Basilides and Martialis have been contaminated by
the abominable certificate of idolatry; and Basilides, moreover, besides
the stain of the certificate, when he was prostrate in sickness, blasphemed
against God, and confessed that he blasphemed; and because of the wound to
his own conscience, i voluntarily laying down his episcopate, turned I
himself to repentance, entreating God, and considering himself sufficiently
happy if it might be permitted him to communicate even as a layman:
Martialis also, besides the long frequenting of the disgraceful and filthy
banquets of the Gentiles in their college, and placing his sons in the same
college, after the manner of foreign nations, among profane sepulchres, and
burying them together with strangers, has also affirmed, by acts which are
publicly taken before a ducenarian procurator,(9) that he had yielded
himself to idolatry, and had denied Christ; and as there are many other and
grave crimes in which Basilides and Martialis are held to be implicated;
such persons attempt to claim for themselves the episcopate in vain; since
it is evident that men of that kind may neither rule over the Church of
Christ, nor ought to offer sacrifices to God, especially since Cornelius
also, our colleague, a peaceable and righteous priest, and moreover
honoured by the condescension of the Lord with martyrdom, has long ago
decreed with us,(10) and with all the bishops appointed throughout the
whole world, that men of, this sort might indeed be admitted to repentance,
but were prohibited from the ordination of the clergy, and from the
priestly honour.
7. Nor let it disturb you, dearest brethren, if with some, in these
last times, either an uncertain faith is wavering, or a fear of God without
religion is vacillating, or a peaceable concord does not continue. These
things have been foretold as about to happen in the end of the world; and
it was predicted by the voice of the Lord, and by the testimony of the
apostles, that now that the world is failing, and the Antichrist is drawing
near, everything good shall fail, but evil and adverse things shall
prosper.(11)
8. Yet although, in these last times, evangelic rigour has not so
failed in the Church of God, nor the strength of Christian virtue or faith
so languished, that there is not left a portion of the priests which in no
respect gives way under these ruins of things and wrecks of faith; but,
bold and stedfast, they maintain the honour of the divine majesty and the
priestly dignity, with full observance of fear. We remember and keep in
view that, although others succumbed and yielded, Mattathias boldly
vindicated God's law; that Elias, when the Jews gave way and departed from
the divine religion, stood and nobly contended; that Daniel, deterred
neither by the loneliness of a foreign country nor by the harassment of
continual persecution, frequently and gloriously suffered martyrdoms; also
that the three youths, subdued neither by their tender years(1) nor by
threats, stood up faithfully against the Babylonian fires, and conquered
the victor king even in their very captivity itself. Let the number either
of prevaricators or of traitors see to it, who have now begun to rise in
the Church against the Church, and to corrupt as well the faith as the
truth. Among very many there still remains a sincere mind and a substantial
religion, and a spirit devoted to nothing but the Lord and its God.(2) Nor
does the perfidy of others press down the Christian faith into ruin, but
rather stimulates and exalts it to glory, according to what the blessed
Apostle Paul exhorts, and says: "For what if some of these have fallen from
their faith: hath their unbelief made the faith of God of none effect? God
forbid. For God is true, but every man a liar."(3) But if every man is a
liar, and God only true, what else ought we, the servants, and especially
the priests, of God, to do, than forsake human errors and lies, and
continue in the truth of God, keeping the Lord's precepts?
9. Wherefore, although there have been found: some among our
colleagues, dearest brethren, who think that the godly discipline may be
neglected, and who rashly hold communion with Basilides and Martialis, such
a thing as this ought not to trouble our faith, since the Holy Spirit
threatens such in the Psalms, saying, "But thou hatest instruction, and
castedst my words behind thee: when thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst
unto him, and hast been partaker with adulterers."(4) He shows that they
become sharers and partakers of other men's sins who are associated with
the delinquents. And besides, Paul the apostle writes, and says the same
thing: "Whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, injurious, proud, boasters
of themselves, inventors of evil things, who, although they knew the
judgment of God, did not understand that they which commit such things are
worthy of death, not only they which commit those things, but they also
which consent unto those who do these things."(5) Since they, says he, who
do such things are worthy of death, he makes manifest and proves that not
only they are worthy of death, and come into punishment who do evil things,
but also those who consent unto those who do such things--who, while they
are mingled in unlawful communion with the evil and sinners, and the
unrepenting, are polluted by the contact of the guilty, and, being joined
in the fault, are thus not separated in its penalty. For which reason we
not only approve, but applaud, dearly beloved brethren, the religious
solicitude of your integrity and faith, and exhort you as much as we can by
our letters, not to mingle in sacrilegious communion with profane and
polluted priests, but maintain the sound and sincere constancy of your
faith with religious fear. I bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily
farewell.
EPISTLE LXVIII.(6)
TO FLORENTIUS PUPIANUS, ON CALUMNIATORS.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN CLEARS HIMSELF IN THE EYES OF FLORENTIUS PUPIANUS FROM
VARIOUS CRIMES OF WHICH HE IS ACCUSED BY HIM; AND ARGUES THE LIGHTNESS OF
HIS MIND, IN THAT HE HAS SO HASTILY TRUSTED CALUMNIATORS.
1. Cyprian, who is also called Thascius,(7) to Florentius, who is also
Pupianus, his brother, greeting. I had believed, brother, that you were now
at length turned to repentance for having either rashly heard or believed
in time past things so wicked, so disgraceful, so execrable even among
Gentiles, concerning me. But even now in your letter I perceive that you
are still the same as you were before--that you believe the same things
concerning me, and that you persist in what you did believe, and, lest by
chance the dignity of your eminence and your martyrdom should be stained by
communion with me, that you are inquiring carefully into my character; and
after God the Judge who makes priests, that you wish to judge--I will not
say of me, for what am I?--but of the judgment of God and of Christ. This
is not to believe in God--this is to stand forth as a rebel against Christ
and His Gospel; so that although He says, "Are not two sparrows sold for a
farthing? and neither of them falls to the ground without the will of my
Father,"(1) and His majesty and truth prove that even things of little
consequence are not done without the consciousness and permission of God,
you think that God's priests are ordained in the Church without His
knowledge. For to believe that they who are ordained are unworthy and
unchaste, what else is it than to believe that his priests are not
appointed in the Church by God, nor through God?
2. Think you that my testimony of myself is better than that of God?
when the Lord Himself teaches, and says that testimony is not true, if any
one himself appears as a witness concerning himself, for the reason that
every one would assuredly favour himself. Nor would any one put forward
mischievous and adverse things against himself, but there may be a simple
confidence of truth if, in what was announced of us, another is the
announcer and witness. "If," He says, "I bear witness of myself, my
testimony is not true; but there is another who beareth witness of me."(2)
but if the Lord Himself, who will by and by judge all things, was unwilling
to be believed on His own testimony, but preferred to be approved by the
judgment and testimony of God the Father, how much more does it be-hove His
servants to observe this, who are not only approved by, but even glory in
the judgment and testimony of God! But with you the fabrication of hostile
and malignant men has prevailed against the divine decree, and against our
conscience resting upon the strength of its faith, as if among lapsed and
profane persons placed outside the Church, from whose breasts the Holy
Spirit has departed, there could be anything else than a depraved mind and
a deceitful tongue, and venomous hatred, and sacrilegious lies, which
whosoever believes, must of necessity be found with them when the day of
judgment shall come.
3. But with respect to what you have said, that priests should be
lowly, because both the Lord and His apostles were lowly; both all the
brethren and Gentiles also well know and love my humility; and you also
knew and loved it while you were still in the Church, and were in communion
with me. But which of us is far from humility: I, who daily serve the
brethren, and kindly receive with good-will and gladness every one that
comes to the Church; or you, who appoint yourself bishop of a bishop, and
judge of a judge,(3) given for the time by God? Although the Lord God says
in Deuteronomy, "And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not
hearken unto the priests or unto the judge who shall be in those days, even
that man shall die; and all the people, when they hear, shall fear, and do
no more presumptuously."(4) And again He speaks to Samuel, and says, "They
have not despised thee, but they have despised me."(5) And moreover the
Lord, in the Gospel, when it was said to Him, "Answerest thou the high
priest so?" guarding the priestly dignity, and teaching that it ought to be
maintained, would say nothing against the high priest, but only clearing
His own innocence, answered, saying, "If I have spoken evil, bear witness
of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?"(6) The blessed apostle
also, when it was said to him, "Revilest thou God's high priest?" spoke
nothing reproachfully against the priest, when he might have lifted up
himself boldly against those who had crucified the Lord, and who had
already sacrificed God and Christ, and the temple and the priesthood; but
even although in false and degraded priests, considering still the mere
empty shadow of the priestly name, he said, "I wist not, brethren, that he
was the high priest; for it is written, Thou shall not speak evil of the
ruler of thy people."(7)
4. Unless perchance I was a priest to you before the persecution, when
you held communion with me, and ceased to be a priest after the
persecution! For the persecution, when it came, lifted you to the highest
sublimity of martyrdom. But it depressed me with the burden of
proscription, since it was publicly declared, "If any one holds or
possesses any of the property of Caecilius Cyprian, bishop of the
Christians;" so that even they who did not believe in God appointing a
bishop, could still believe in the devil proscribing a bishop. Nor do I
boast of these things, but with grief I bring them forward, since you
constitute yourself a judge(3) of God and of Christ, who says to the
apostles, and thereby to all chief rulers, who by vicarious ordination
succeed to the apostles: "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that
heareth me, heareth Him that sent me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth
me, and Him that sent me."(8)
5. For from this have arisen, and still arise, schisms and heresies, in
that the bishop who is one(9) and rules over the Church is contemned by the
haughty presumption of some persons; and the man who is honoured by God's
condescension, is judged unworthy by men. For what swelling of pride is
this, what arrogance of soul, what inflation of mind, to call prelates and
priests to one's own recognition, and unless I may be declared clear in
your sight and absolved by your judgment, behold now for six years the
brotherhood has neither had a bishop, nor the people a prelate,(1) nor the
flock a pastor, nor the Church a governor, nor Christ a representative,(2)
nor God a priest! Pupianus must come to the rescue, and give judgment, and
declare the decision of God and Christ accepted, that so great a number of
the faithful who have been summoned away, under my rule, may not appear to
have departed without hope of salvation and of peace; that the new crowd of
believers may not be considered to have failed of attaining any grace of
baptism and the Holy Spirit by my ministry;(3) that the peace conferred
upon so many lapsed and penitent persons, and the communion vouchsafed by
my examination, may not be abrogated by the authority of your judgment.
Condescend for once, and deign to pronounce concerning us, and to establish
our episcopate by the authority of your recognition, that God and His
Christ may thank you, in that by your means a representative and ruler has
been restored as well to their altar as to their people.
6. Bees have a king, and cattle a leader, and they keep faith to him.
Robbers obey their chief with an obedience full of humility. How much more
simple and better than you are the brute cattle and dumb animals, and
robbers, although bloody, and raging among swords and weapons! The chief
among them is acknowledged and feared, whom no divine judgment has
appointed, but on whom an abandoned faction and a guilty band have agreed.
7. You say, indeed, that the scruple into which you have fallen ought
to be taken from your mind. You have fallen into it, but it was by your
irreligious credulity. You have fallen into it, but it was by your own
sacrilegious disposition and will in easily hearkening to unchaste, to
impious, to unspeakable things against your brother. against a priest, and
in willingly believing them in defending other men's falselhoods, as if
they were your own and your private property; and in not remembering that
it is written, "Hedge thine ears with thorns, and hearken not to a wicked
tongue;"(4) and again: "A wicked doer giveth heed to the tongue of the
unjust; but a righteous man regards not lying lips."(5) Wherefore have not
the martyrs fallen into this scruple, full of the Holy Ghost, and already
by their passion near to the presence of God and of His Christ; martyrs
who, from their dungeon, directed letters to Cyprian the bishop,
acknowledging the priest of God, and bearing witness to him? Wherefore have
not so many bishops, my colleagues, fallen into this scruple, who either,
when they departed from the midst of us, were proscribed, or being taken
were cast into prison and were in chains; or who, sent away into exile,
have gone by an illustrious road to the Lord; or who in some places,
condemned to death, have received heavenly crowns from the glorification of
the Lord? Wherefore have not they fallen into this scruple, from among that
people of ours which is with us, and is by God's condescension committed to
us--so many confessors who have been put to the question and tortured, and
glorious by the memory of illustrious wounds and scars; so many chaste
virgins, so many praiseworthy widows; finally, all the churches throughout
the whole world who are associated with us in the bond of unity? Unless all
these, who are in communion with me, as you have written, are polluted with
the pollution of my lips, and have lost the hope of eternal life by the
contagion of my communion.(6) Pupianus alone, sound, inviolate, holy,
modest, who would not associate himself with us, shall dwell alone in
paradise and in the kingdom of heaven.
8. You have written also, that on my account the Church has now a
portion of herself in a state of dispersion, although the whole people of
the Church are collected, and united, and joined to itself in an undivided
concord: they alone have remained without, who even, if they had been
within, would have had to be cast out. Nor does the Lord, the protector of
His people, and their guardian, suffer the wheat to be snatched from His
floor; but the chaff alone can be separated from the Church, since also the
apostle says, "For what if some of them have departed from the faith? shall
their unbelief make the faith of God of none effect? God forbid; for God is
true, but every man a liar."(7) And the Lord also in the Gospel, when
disciples forsook Him as He spoke, turning to the twelve, said, "Will ye
also go away?" then Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou
hast the word of eternal life; and we believe, and are sure, that Thou art
the Son of the living God."(8) Peter speaks there, on whom the Church was
to be built,(9) teaching and showing in the name of the Church, that
although a rebellious and arrogant multitude of those who will not hear and
obey may depart, yet the Church does not depart from Christ; and they are
the Church who are a people united to the priest, and the flock which
adheres to its pastor.(3) Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in
the Church, and the Church in the bishop;(1) and if any one be not with the
bishop, that he is not in the Church, and that those flatter themselves in
vain who creep in, not having peace with God's priests, and think that they
communicate secretly with some; while the Church, which is Catholic and
one, is not cut nor divided, but is indeed connected and bound together by
the cement of priests who cohere with one another.
9. Wherefore, brother, if you consider God's majesty who ordains
priests, if you will for once have respect to Christ, who by His decree and
word, and by His presence, both rules prelates themselves, and rules the
Church by prelates; if you will trust, in respect of the innocence of
bishops, not human hatred, but the divine judgment; if you will begin even
a late repentance for your temerity, and pride, and insolence; if you will
most abundantly make satisfaction to God and His Christ whom I serve, and
to whom with pure and unstained lips I ceaselessly offer sacrifices, not
only in peace, but in persecution; we may have some ground for communion
with you, even although there still remain among us respect and fear for
the divine censure; so that first I should consult my Lord whether He
would permit peace to be granted to you, and you to be received to the
communion of His Church by His own showing and admonition.
10. For I remember what has already been manifested to me, nay, what
has been prescribed by the authority of our Lord and God to an obedient
and fearing servant; and among other things which He condescended to show
and to reveal, He also added this: "Whoso therefore does not believe
Christ, who maketh the priest, shall hereafter begin to believe Him who
avengeth the priest." Although I know that to some men dreams seem
ridiculous and visions foolish, yet assuredly it is to such as would rather
believe in opposition to the priest, than believe the priest. But it is no
wonder, since his brethren said of Joseph, "Behold, this dreamer cometh;
come now therefore, let us slay him."(2) And afterwards the dreamer
attained to what he had dreamed; and his slayers and sellers were put to
confusion, so that they, who at first did not believe the words, afterwards
believed the deeds. But of those things that you have done, either in
persecution or in peace, it is foolish for me to pretend to judge you,
since you rather appoint yourself a judge over us. These things, of the
pure conscience of my mind, and of my confidence in my Lord and my God, I
have written at length. You have my letter, and I yours. In the day of
judgment, before the tribunal of Christ, both will be read.
EPISTLE LXIX.(3)
TO JANUARIUS AND OTHER NUMIDIAN BISHOPS, ON BAPTIZING HERETICS.
ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THIS LETTER AND THE NEXT IS FOUND IN A
SUBSEQUENT EPISTLE TO STEPHEN;(4) "THAT WHAT HERETICS USE IS NOT BAPTISM;
AND THAT NONE AMONG THEM CAN RECEIVE BENEFiT BY THE GRACE OF CHRIST, WHO
OPPOSE CHRIST; HAS BEEN LATELY CAREFULLY EXPRESSED IN A LETTER WHICH WAS
WRITTEN ON THAT SUBJECT TO QUINTUS, OUR COLLEAGUE, ESTABLISHED IN
MAURITANIA; AS ALSO IN A LETTER WHICH OUR COLLEAGUES PREVIOUSLY WROTE TO
THE BISHOPS PRESIDING IN NUMIDIA; OF BOTH OF WHICH LETTERS I HAVE SUBJOINED
COPIES."(5)
1. Cyprian, Liberalis, Caldonius, Junius, Primus, Caecilius, Potycarp,
Nicomedes, Felix, Marrutius, Successus, Lucianus, Honoratus, Fortu-natus,
Victor, Donatus, Lucius, Herculanus, Pomponius, Demetrius, Quintus,
Saturninus Januarius, Marcus, another Saturninus, another Donatus,
Rogatianus, Sedatus, Tertullus, Hortensianus, still another Saturninus,
Sattius, to their brethren Januarius, Saturninus, Maximus, Victor, another
Victor, Cassius, Proculus, Modianus, Cittinus, Gargilius, Eutycianus,
another Gargilius, another Saturninus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, Antonianus,
Rogatianus, Honoratus, greeting. When we were together in council, dearest
brethren, we read your letter which you wrote to us concerning those who
seem to be baptized by heretics and schismatics, (asking) whether, when
the), come to the Catholic Church, which is one,(6) they ought to be
baptized. On which matter, although you yourselves hold thereupon the truth
and certainty of the Catholic rule, yet since you have thought that of our
mutual love we ought to be consulted, we put forward our opinion, not as a
new one,(7) but we join with you in equal agreement, in an opinion long
since decreed by our predecessors, and observed by us,--judging, namely,
and holding it for certain that no one can be baptized abroad outside the
Church, since there is one baptism appointed in the holy Church. And it is
written in the words of the Lord, "They have forsaken me, the fountain of
living waters, and hewed them out broken cisterns, which can hold no
water."(1) And again, sacred Scripture warns, and says, "Keep thee from the
strange water, and drink not from a fountain of strange water."(2) It is
required, then, that the water should first be cleansed and sanctified by
the priest,(3) that it may wash away by its baptism the sins of the man who
is baptized; because the Lord says by Ezekiel the prophet: "Then will I
sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be cleansed from all your
filthiness; and from all your idols will I cleanse you: a new heart also
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you."(4) But how can he
cleanse and sanctify the water who is himself unclean, and in whom the Holy
Spirit is not? since the Lord says in the book of Numbers, "And whatsoever
the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean."(5) Or how can he who
baptizes give to another remission of sins who himself, being outside the
Church, cannot put away his own sins?
2. But, moreover, the very interrogation which is put in baptism is a
witness of the truth. For when we say, "Dost thou believe in eternal life
and remission of sins through the holy Church?" we mean that remission of
sins is not granted except in the Church, and that among heretics, where
there is no Church, sins cannot be put away. Therefore they who assert that
heretics can baptize, must either change the interrogation or maintain the
truth; unless indeed they attribute a church also to those who, they
contend, have baptism. It is also necessary that he should be anointed who
is baptized; so that, having received the chrism,(6) that is, the
anointing, he may be anointed of God, and have in him the grace of Christ.
Further, it is the Eucharist whence the baptized are anointed with the oil
sanctified on the altar.(7) But he cannot sanctify the creature of oil,(8)
who has neither an altar nor a church; whence also there can be no
spiritual anointing among heretics, since it is manifest that the oil
cannot be sanctified nor the Eucharist celebrated at all among them. But we
ought to know and remember that it is written, "Let not the oil of a sinner
anoint my head,"(9) which the Holy Spirit before forewarned in the Psalms,
lest any one going out of the way and wandering from the path of truth
should be anointed by heretics and adversaries of Christ. Besides, what
prayer can a priest who is impious and a sinner offer for a baptized
person? since it is written, "God heareth not a sinner; but if any man be a
worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth."(10) Who, moreover,
can give what he himself has not? or how can he discharge spiritual
functions who himself has lost the Holy Spirit? And therefore he must be
baptized and renewed who comes untrained to the Church, that he may be
sanctified within by those who are holy, since it is written, "Be ye holy,
for I am holy, saith the Lord."(11) So that he who has been seduced into
error, and baptized(12) outside of the Church, should lay aside even this
very thing in the true and ecclesiastical baptism, viz., that he a man
coming to God, while he seeks for a priest, fell by the deceit of error
upon a profane one.
3. But it is to approve the baptism of heretics and schismatics, to
admit that they have truly baptized. For therein a part cannot be void, and
part be valid. If one could baptize, he could also give the Holy Spirit.
But if he cannot give the Holy Spirit, because he that is appointed without
is not endowed with the Holy Spirit, he cannot baptize those who come;
since both baptism is one and the Holy Spirit is one, and the Church
founded by Christ the Lord upon Peter, by a source and principle of
unity,(13) is one also. Hence it results, that since with them all things
are futile and false, nothing of that which they have done ought to be
approved by us. For what can be ratified and established by God which is
done by them whom the Lord calls His enemies and adversaries? setting forth
in His Gospel, "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth
not with me, scattereth."(14) And the blessed Apostle John also, keeping
the commandments and precepts of the Lord, has laid it down in his epistle,
and said, "Ye have heard that antichrist shall come: even now there are
many Antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out
from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, no doubt they
would have continued with us."(15) Whence we also ought to gather and
consider whether they who are the Lord's adversaries, and are called
antichrists, can give the grace of Christ. Wherefore we who are with the
Lord, and maintain the unity of the Lord, and according to His
condescension administer His priesthood in the Church, ought to repudiate
and reject and regard as profane whatever His adversaries and the
antichrists do; and to those who, coming out of error and wickedness,
acknowledge the true faith of the one Church, we should give the truth both
of unity and faith, by means of all the sacraments of divine grace.(1) We
bid you, dearest brethren, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LXX.(2)
TO QUINTUS, CONCERNING THE BAPTISM OF HERETICS.
ARGUMENT.--AN ANSWER IS GIVEN TO QUINTUS A BISHOP IN MAURITANIA, WHO HAS
ASKED ADVICE CONCERNING THE BAPTISM OF HERETICS.
1. Cyprian to Quintus his brother, greeting. Lucian, our co-presbyter,
has reported to me, dearest brother, that you have wished me to declare to
you what I think concerning those who seem to have been baptized by
heretics and schismatics; of which matter, that you may know what several
of us fellow-bishops, with the brother presbyters who were present, lately
determined in council, I have sent you a copy of the same epistle. For I
know not by what presumption some of our colleagues(3) are led to think
that they who have been dipped by heretics ought not to be baptized when
they come to us, for the reason that they say that there is one baptism
which indeed is therefore one, because the Church is one, and there cannot
be any baptism out of the Church.(4) For since there cannot be two
baptisms, if heretics truly baptize, they themselves have this baptism. And
he who of his own authority grants this advantage to them yields and
consents to them, that the enemy and adversary of Christ should seem to
have the power of washing, and purifying, and sanctifying a man. But we say
that those who come thence are not re-baptized among us, but are baptized.
For indeed they do not receive anything there, where there is nothing; but
they come to us, that here they may receive where there is both grace and
all truth, because both grace and truth are one. But again some of our
colleagues(3) would rather give honour to heretics than agree with us; and
while by the assertion of one baptism they are unwilling to baptize those
that come, they thus either themselves make two baptisms in saying that
there is a baptism among heretics; or certainly, which is a matter of more
importance, they strive to set before and prefer the sordid and profane
washing of heretics to the true and only and legitimate baptism of the
Catholic Church, not considering that it is written, "He who is baptized by
one dead, what availeth his washing?"(5) Now it is manifest that they who
are not in the Church of Christ are reckoned among the dead; and another
cannot be made alive by him who himself is not alive, since there is one
Church which, having attained the grace of eternal life, both lives for
ever and quickens the people of God.
2. And they say that in this matter they follow ancient custom;(6)
although among the ancients these were as yet the first beginnings of
heresy and schisms, so that those were involved in them who departed from
the Church, having first been baptized therein; and these, therefore, when
they returned to the Church and repented, it was not necessary to baptize.
Which also we observe in the present day, that it is sufficient to lay
hands for repentance upon those who are known to have been baptized in the
Church, and have gone over from us to the heretics, if, subsequently
acknowledging their sin and putting away their error, they return to the
truth and to their parent; so that, because it had been a sheep, the
Shepherd may receive into His fold the estranged and vagrant sheep. But if
he who comes from the heretics has not previously been baptized in the
Church, but comes as a stranger and entirely profane, he must be baptized,
that he may become a sheep, because in the holy Church is the one water
which makes sheep. And therefore, because there can be nothing common to
falsehood and truth, to darkness and light, to death and immortality, to
Antichrist and Christ, we ought by all means to maintain the unity of the
Catholic Church, and not to give way to the enemies of faith and truth in
any respect.
3. Neither must we prescribe this from custom, but overcome opposite
custom by reason. For neither did Peter, whom first the Lord chose, and
upon whom He built His Church, when Paul disputed with him afterwards about
circumcision, claim anything to himself insolently, nor arrogantly assume
anything; so as to say that he held the primacy,(7) and that he ought
rather to be obeyed by novices and those lately come.(8) Nor did he despise
Paul because he had previously been a persecutor of the Church, but
admitted the counsel of truth, and easily yielded to the lawful reason
which Paul asserted, furnishing thus an illustration to us both of concord
and of patience, that we should not obstinately love our own opinions, but
should rather adopt as our own those which at any time are usefully and
wholesomely suggested by our brethren and colleagues, if they be true and
lawful. Paul, moreover, looking forward to this, and consulting faithfully
for concord and peace, has laid down in his epistle this rule: "Moreover,
let the prophets speak two or three, and let the rest judge. But if
anything be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his
peace."(1) In which place he has taught and shown that many things are
revealed to individuals for the better, and that each one ought not
obstinately to contend for that which he had once imbibed and held; but if
anything has appeared better and more useful, he should gladly embrace it.
For we are not overcome when better things are presented to us, but we are
instructed, especially in those matters which pertain to the unity of the
Church and the truth of our hope and faith; so that we, priests of God and
prelates of His Church, by His condescension, should know that remission of
sins cannot be given save in the Church, nor can the adversaries of Christ
claim to themselves anything belonging to His grace.
4. Which thing, indeed, Agrippinus also, a man of worthy memory, with
his other fellow-bishops, who at that time governed the Lord's Church in
the province of Africa and Numidia, decreed, and by the well-weighed
examination of the common council established: whose opinion, as being both
religious and lawful and salutary, and in harmony with the Catholic faith
and Church, we also have followed.(2) And that you may know what kind of
letters we have written on this subject, I have transmitted for our mutual
love a copy of them, as well for your own information as for that of our
fellow-bishops who are in those parts. I bid you, dearest brother, ever
heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LXXI.(3)
TO STEPHEN, CONCERNING A COUNCIL.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN WITH HIS COLLEAGUES IN A CERTAIN COUNCIL TELLS STEPHEN,
THE ROMAN BISHOP, THAT IT HAD BEEN DECREED BY THEM, BOTH THAT THOSE WHO
RETURNED FROM HERESY INTO THE CHURCH SHOULD BE BAPTIZED, AND THAT BISHOPS
OR PRIESTS COMING FROM THE HERETICS SHOULD BE RECEIVED ON NO OTHER
CONDITION, THAN THAT THEY SHOULD COMMUNICATE AS LAY PEOPLE. A.D. 255.
1. Cyprian and others, to Stephen their brother, greeting. We have
thought it necessary for the arranging of certain matters, dearest brother,
and for their investigation by the examination of a common council, to
gather together and to hold a council, at which many priests were assembled
at once; at which, moreover, many things were brought forward and
transacted. But the subject in regard to which we had chiefly to write to
you, and to confer with your gravity and wisdom, is one that more
especially pertains both to the priestly authority and to the unity, as
well as the dignity, of the Catholic Church, arising as these do from the
ordination of the divine appointment; to wit, that those who have been
dipped abroad outside the Church, and have been stained among heretics and
schismatics with the taint of profane water, when they come to us and to
the Church which is one, ought to be baptized, for the reason that it is a
small matter(4) to "lay hands on them that they may receive the Holy
Ghost," unless they receive also the baptism of the Church. For then
finally can they be fully sanctified, and be the sons of God, if they be
born of each sacrament;(5) since it is written, "Except a man be born again
of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."(6)
For we find also, in the Acts of the Apostles, that this is maintained by
the apostles, and kept in the truth of the saving faith, so that when, in
the house of Cornelius the centurion, the Holy Ghost had descended upon the
Gentiles who were there, fervent in the warmth of their faith, and
believing in the Lord with their whole heart; and when, filled with the
Spirit, they blessed God in divers tongues, still none the less the blessed
Apostle Peter, mindful of the divine precept and the Gospel, commanded that
those same men should be baptized who had already been filled with the Holy
Spirit, that nothing might seem to be neglected to the observance by the
apostolic instruction in all things of the law of the divine precept and
Gospel.(7) But that that is not baptism which the heretics use; and that
none of those who oppose Christ can profit by the grace of Christ; has
lately been set forth with care in the letter which was written on that
subject to Quintus, our colleague, established in Mauritania; as also in a
letter which our colleagues previously wrote to our fellow-bishops
presiding in Numidia, of both which letters I have subjoined copies.
2. We add, however, and connect with what we have said, dearest
brother, with common consent and authority, that if, again, any presbyters
or deacons, who either have been before ordained in the Catholic Church,
and have subsequently stood forth as traitors and rebels against the
Church, or who have been promoted among the heretics by a profane
ordination by the hands of false bishops and antichrists contrary to the
appointment of Christ, and have attempted to offer; in opposition to the
one and divine altar, false and sacrilegious sacrifices without, that these
also be received when they return, on this condition, that they communicate
as laymen, and hold it to be enough that they should be received to peace,
after having stood forth as enemies of peace; and that they ought not, on
returning, to retain those arms of ordination and honour with which they
rebelled against us. For it behoves priests and ministers, who wait upon
the altar and sacrifices, to be sound and stainless; since the Lord God
speaks in Leviticus, and says, "No man that hath a stain or a blemish shall
come nigh to offer gifts to the Lord."(1) Moreover, in Exodus, He
prescribes this same thing, and says, "And let the priests which come near
to the Lord God sanctify themselves, lest the Lord forsake them."(2) And
again: "And when they come near to minister at the altar of the holy place,
they shall not bear iniquity upon them, lest they die."(3) But what can be
greater iniquity, or what stain can be more odious, than to have stood in
opposition to Christ; than to have scattered His Church, which He purchased
and founded with His blood; than, unmindful of evangelical peace and love,
to have fought with the madness of hostile discord against the unanimous
and accordant people of God? Such as these, although they themselves return
to the Church, still cannot restore and recall with them those who, seduced
by them, and forestalled by death without, have perished outside the Church
without communion and peace; whose souls in the day of judgment shall be
required at the hands of those who have stood forth as the authors and
leaders of their ruin. And therefore to such, when they return, it is
sufficient that pardon should be granted; since perfidy ought certainly not
to receive promotion in the household of faith. For what do we reserve for
the good and innocent, and those who do not depart from the Church, if we
honour those who have departed from us, and stood in opposition to the
Church?
3. We have brought these things, dearest brother, to your knowledge,
for the sake of our mutual honour and sincere affection; believing that,
according to the truth of your religion and faith, those things which are
no less religious than true will be approved by you. But we know that some
will not lay aside what they have once imbibed, and do not easily change
their purpose; but, keeping fast the bond of peace and concord among their
colleagues, retain certain things peculiar to themselves, which have once
been adopted among them. In which behalf we neither do violence to, nor
impose a law upon, any one, since each prelate has in the administration of
the Church the exercise of his will free, as he shall give an account of
his conduct to the Lord.(4) We bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily
farewell.
EPISTLE LXXII.(5)
TO JUBAIANUS, CONCERNING THE BAPTISM OF HERETICS.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN REFUTES A LETTER ENCLOSED TO HIM BY JUBAIANUS, AND WITH
THE GREATEST CARE COLLECTS WHATEVER HE THINKS WILL AVAIL FOR THE DEFENCE OF
HIS CAUSE. MOREOVER, HE SENDS JUBAIANUS A COPY OF THE LETTER TO THE
NUMIDIANS AND TO QUINTUS, AND PROBABLY THE DECREES OF THE LAST SYNOD.(6)
1. Cyprian to Jubaianus his brother, greeting. You have written to me,
dearest brother, wishing that the impression of my mind should be signified
to you, as to what I think concerning the baptism of heretics; who, placed
without, and established outside the Church, arrogate to themselves a
matter neither within their right nor their power. This baptism we cannot
consider as valid or legitimate, since it is manifestly unlawful among
them; and since we have already expressed in our letters what we thought on
this matter, I have, as a compendious method, sent you a copy of the same
letters, what we decided in council when very many of us were present, and
what, moreover, I subsequently wrote back to Quintus, our colleague, when
he asked about the same thing. And now also, when we had met together,
bishops as well of the province of Africa as of Numidia, to the number of
seventy-one, we established this same matter once more(7) by our judgment,
deciding that there is one baptism which is appointed in the Catholic
Church; and that by this those are not re-baptized, but baptized by us, who
at any time come from the adulterous and unhallowed water to be washed and
sanctified by the truth of the saving water.
2. Nor does what you have described in your letters disturb us, dearest
brother, that the Novarians re-baptize those whom they entice from us,
since it does not in any wise matter to us what the enemies of the Church
do, so long as we ourselves hold a regard for our power, and the
stedfastness of reason and truth. For Novatian, after the manner of apes--
which, although they are not men, yet imitate human doings--wishes to claim
to himself the authority and truth of the Catholic Church, while he himself
is not in the Church; nay, moreover, has stood forth hitherto as a rebel
and enemy against the Church. For, knowing that there is one baptism, he
arrogates to himself this one, so that he may say that the Church is with
him, and make us heretics. But we who hold the head and root(1) of the one
Church know, and trust for certain, that nothing is lawful there outside
the Church, and that the baptism which is one(2) is among us, where he
himself also was formerly baptized, when he maintained both the wisdom and
truth of the divine unity. But if Novatian thinks that those who have been
baptized in the Church are to be re-baptized outside--without the Church--
he ought to begin by himself, that he might first be re-baptized with an
extraneous and heretical baptism, since he thinks that after the Church,
yea, and contrary to the Church, people are to be baptized without. But
what sort of a thing is this, that, because Novatian dares to do this
thing, we are to think that we must not do it! What then? Because Novatian
also usurps the honour of the priestly throne, ought we therefore to
renounce our throne? Or because Novatian endeavours wrongfully to set up an
altar and to offer sacrifices, does it behove us to cease from our altar
and sacrifices, lest we should appear to be celebrating the same or like
things with him? Utterly vain and foolish is it, that because Novatian
arrogates to himself outside the Church the image of the truth, we should
forsake the truth of the Church.
3. But among us it is no new or sudden thing for us to judge that
those are to be baptized who come to the Church from among the heretics,
since it is now many years and a long time ago, that, under Agrippinus--a
man of worthy memory--very many bishops assembling together have decided
this;(3) and thenceforward until the present day, so many thousands of
heretics in our provinces have been converted to the Church, and have
neither despised nor delayed, nay, they have both reasonably and gladly
embraced, the opportunity to attain the grace of the life-giving layer and
of saving baptism. For it is not difficult for a teacher to insinuate true
and lawful things into his mind, who, having condemned heretical pravity,
and discovered the truth of the Church, comes for this purpose, that he may
learn, and learns for the purpose that he may live. We ought not to
increase the stolidity of heretics by the patronage of our consent, when
they gladly and readily obey the truth.
4. Certainly, since I found in the letter the copy of which you
transmitted to me, that it was written, "That it should not be asked who
baptized, since he who is baptized might receive remission of sins
according to what he believed," I thought that this topic was not to be
passed by, especially since I observed in the same epistle that mention was
also made of Marcion, saying that "even those that came from him did not
need to be baptized, because they seemed to have been already baptized in
the name of Jesus Christ." Therefore we ought to consider their faith who
believe without, whether in respect of the same faith they can obtain any
grace. For if we and heretics have one faith, we may also have one grace.
If the Patripassians, Anthropians, Valentinians, Apelletians, Ophites,
Marcionites, and other pests, and swords, and poisons of heretics for
subverting the truth,(4) confess the same Father, the same Son, the same
Holy Ghost, the same Church with us, they may also have one baptism if they
have also one faith.
5. And lest it should be wearisome to go through all the heresies, and
to enumerate either the follies or the madness of each of them, because it
is no pleasure to speak of that which one either dreads or is ashamed to
know, let us examine in the meantime about Marcion alone, the mention of
whom has been made in the letter transmitted by you to us, whether the
ground of his baptism can be made good. For the Lord after His
resurrection, sending His disciples, instructed and taught them in what
manner they ought to baptize, saying, "All power is given unto me in heaven
and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."(5) He
suggests the Trinity, in whose sacrament the nations were to be baptized.
Does Marcion then maintain the Trinity? Does he then assert the same
Father, the Creator, as we do? Does he know the same Son, Christ born of
the Virgin Mary, who as the Word was made flesh, who bare our sins, who
conquered death by dying, who by Himself first of all originated the
resurrection of the flesh, and showed to His disciples that He had risen in
the same flesh? Widely different is the faith with Marcion, and, moreover,
with the other heretics nay, with them there is nothing but perfidy, and
blasphemy, and contention, which is hostile to holiness and truth. How then
can one who is baptized among them seem to have obtained mission of sins,
and the grace of the divine mercy, by his faith, when he has not the truth
of the faith itself? For if, as some suppose, one could receive anything
abroad out of the Church according to his faith, certainly he has received
what he believed; but if he believes what is false, he could not receive
what is true; but rather he has received things adulterous and profane,
according to what he believed.
6. This matter of profane and adulterous baptism Jeremiah the prophet
plainly rebukes, saying, "Why do they who afflict me prevail? My wound is
hard; whence shall I be healed? while it has indeed become unto me as
deceitful water which has no faithfulness."(1) The Holy Spirit makes
mention by the prophet of deceitful water which has no faithfulness. What
is this deceitful and faithless water? Certainly that which falsely assumes
the resemblance of baptism, and frustrates the grace of faith by a shadowy
pretence. But if, according to a perverted faith, one could be baptized
without, and obtain remission of sins, according to the same faith he could
also attain the Holy Spirit; and there is no need that hands should be laid
on him when he comes, that he might obtain the Holy Ghost, and be sealed.
Either he could obtain both privileges without by his faith, or he who has
been without has received neither.
7. But it is manifest where and by whom remission of sins can be given;
to wit, that which is given in baptism. For first of all the Lord gave that
power to Peter, upon whom He built the Church, and whence He appointed and
showed the source of unity--the power, namely, that whatsoever he loosed on
earth should be loosed in heaven. And after the resurrection, also, He
speaks to the apostles, saying, "As the Father hath sent me, even so I send
you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith, unto them,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted
unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained."(2) Whence we
perceive that only they who are set over the Church and established in the
Gospel law, and in the ordinance of the Lord, are allowed to baptize and to
give remission of sins; but that without, nothing can either be bound or
loosed, where there is none who can either bind or loose anything.
8. Nor do we propose this, dearest brother, without the authority of
divine Scripture, when we say that all things are arranged by divine
direction by a certain law and by special ordinance, and that none can
usurp to himself, in opposition to the bishops and priests, anything which
is not of his own right and power. For Korah, Dathan, and Abiram
endeavoured to usurp, in opposition to Moses and Aaron the priest, the
power of sacrificing; and they did not do without punishment what they
unlawfully dared. The sons of Aaron also, who placed strange fire upon the
altar, were at once consumed in the sight of an angry Lord; which
punishment remains to those who introduce strange water by a false baptism,
that the divine vengeance may avenge and chastise when heretics do that in
opposition to the Church, which the Church alone is allowed to do.
9. But in respect of the assertion of some concerning those who had
been baptized in Samaria, that when the Apostles Peter and John came, only
hands were imposed on them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost, yet
that they were not re-baptized; we see that that place does not, dearest
brother, touch the present case. For they who had believed in Samaria had
believed with a true faith; and within, in the Church which is one, and to
which alone it is granted to bestow the grace of baptism and to remit sins,
had been baptized by Philip the deacon, whom the same apostles had sent.
And therefore, because they had obtained a legitimate and ecclesiastical
baptism, there was no need that they should be baptized any more, but only
that which was needed was performed by Peter and John; viz., that prayer
being made for them, and hands being imposed, the Holy Spirit should be
invoked and poured out upon them, which now too is done among us, so that
they who are baptized in the Church are brought to the prelates of the
Church, and by our prayers and by the imposition of hands obtain the Holy
Spirit, and are perfected with the Lord's seal.
10. There is no ground, therefore, dearest brother, for thinking that
we should give way to heretics so far as to contemplate the betrayal to
them of that baptism, which is only granted to the one and only Church. It
is a good soldier's duty to defend the camp of his general against rebels
and enemies. It is the duty of an illustrious leader to keep the standards
entrusted to him.(3) It is written, "The Lord thy God is a jealous God."(4)
We who have received the Spirit of God ought to have a jealousy for the
divine faith; with such a jealousy as that wherewith Phineas both pleased
God and justly allayed His wrath when He was angry, and the people were
perishing. Why do we receive as allowed an adulterous and alien church, a
foe to the divine unity, when we know only one Christ and His one Church?
The Church, setting forth the likeness of paradise, includes within her
walls fruit-bearing trees, whereof that which does not bring forth good
fruit is cut off and is cast into the fire. These trees she waters with
four rivers, that is, with the four Gospels, wherewith, by a celestial
inundation, she bestows the grace of saving baptism. Can any one water from
the Church's fountains who is not within the Church? Can one impart those
wholesome and saving draughts of paradise to any one if he is perverted,
and of himself condemned, and banished outside the fountains of paradise,
and has dried up and failed with the dryness of an eternal thirst?
11. The Lord cries aloud, that "whosoever thirsts should come and drink
of the rivers of i living water that flowed out of His bosom."(1) Whither
is he to come who thirsts? Shall he come to the heretics, where there is no
fountain and river of living water at all; or to the Church which is one,
and is founded upon one who has received the keys of it by the Lord's
voice? It is she who holds and possesses alone all the power of her spouse
and Lord. In her we preside; for her honour and unity we fight; her grace,
as well as her glory, we defend with faithful devotedness.(2) We by the
divine permission water the thirsting people of God; we guard the
boundaries of the living fountains. If, therefore, we hold the right of our
possession, if we acknowledge the sacrament of unity, wherefore are we
esteemed prevaricators against truth? Wherefore are we judged betrayers of
unity? The faithful, and saving, and holy water of the Church cannot be
corrupted and adulterated, as the Church herself also is uncorrupted, and
chaste, and modest. If heretics are devoted to the Church and established
in the Church, they may use both her baptism and her other saving benefits.
But if they are not in the Church, nay more, if they act against the
Church, how can they baptize with the Church's baptism?
12. For it is no small and insignificant matter, which is conceded to
heretics, when their baptism is recognised by us; since thence springs the
whole origin of faith and the saving access to the hope of life eternal,
and the divine condescension for purifying and quickening the servants of
God. For if any one could be baptized among heretics, certainly he could
also obtain remission of sins. If he attained remission of sins, he was
also sanctified. If he was sanctified, he also was made the temple of God.
I ask, of what God? If of the Creator; he could not be, because he has not
believed in Him. If of Christ; he could not become His temple, since he
denies that Christ is God. If of the Holy Spirit; since the three are one,
how can the Holy Spirit be at peace with him who is the enemy either of the
Son or of the Father?
13. Hence it is in vain that some who are overcome by reason oppose to
us custom, as if custom were greater than truth;(3) or as if that were not
to be sought after in spiritual matters which has been revealed as the
better by the Holy Spirit. For one who errs by simplicity may be pardoned,
as the blessed Apostle Paul says of himself, "I who at first was a
blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; yet obtained mercy, because I
did it ignorantly."(4) But after inspiration and revelation made to him, he
who intelligently and knowingly perseveres in that course in which he had
erred, sins without pardon for his ignorance. For he resists with a certain
presumption and obstinacy, when he is overcome by reason. Nor let any one
say, "We follow that which we have received from the apostles," when the
apostles only delivered one Church, and one baptism, which is not ordained
except in the same Church. And we cannot find that any one, when he had
been baptized by heretics, was received by the apostles in the same
baptism, and communicated in such a way as that the apostles should appear
to have approved the baptism of heretics.
14. For as to what some say, as if it tended to favour heretics, that
the Apostle Paul declared, "Only every way, whether in pretence or in
truth, let Christ be preached,"(5) we find that this also can avail
nothing to their benefit who support and applaud heretics. For Paul, in his
epistle, was not speaking of heretics, nor of their baptism, so that
anything can be shown to have been alleged which pertained to this matter.
He was speaking of brethren, whether as walking disorderly anti against the
discipline of the Church, or as keeping the truth of the Gospel with the
fear of God. And he said that certain of them spoke the word of God with
constancy and courage, but some acted in envy and dissension; that some
maintained towards him a benevolent love, but that some indulged a
malevolent spirit of dissension; but yet that he bore all patiently, so
long only as, whether in truth or in pretence, the name of Christ which
Paul preached might come to the knowledge of many; and the sowing of the
word, which as yet had been new and irregular, might increase through the
preaching of the speakers. Besides, it is one thing for those who are
within the Church to speak concerning the name of Christ; it is another for
those who are without, and act in opposition to the Church, to baptize in
the name of Christ. Wherefore, let not those who favour heretics put
forward what Paul spoke concerning brethren, but let them show if he
thought anything was to be conceded to the heretic, or if he approved of
their faith or baptism, or if he appointed that perfidious and blasphemous
men could receive remission of their sins outside the Church.
15. But if we consider what the apostles thought about heretics, we
shall find that they, in all their epistles, execrated and detested the
sacrilegious wickedness of heretics. For when they say that "their word
creeps as a canker,"(1) how is such a word as that able to give remission
of sins, which creeps like a canker to the ears of the hearers? And when
they say that there can be no fellowship between righteousness and un-
righteousness, no communion between light and darkness,(2) how can either
darkness illuminate, or unrighteousness justify? And when they say that
"they are not of God, but are of the spirit of Antichrist,"(3) how can they
transact spiritual and divine matters, who are the enemies of God, and
whose hearts the spirit of Antichrist has possessed? Wherefore, if, laying
aside the errors of human dispute, we return with a sincere and religious
faith to the evangelical authority and to the apostolical tradition, we
shall perceive that they may do nothing towards conferring the
ecclesiastical and saving grace, who, scattering and attacking the Church
of Christ, are called adversaries by Christ Himself, but by His apostles,
Antichrists.
16. Again, there is no ground for any one, for the circumvention of
Christian truth, opposing to us the name of Christ, and saying, "All who
are baptized everywhere, and in any manner, in the name of Jesus Christ,
have obtained the grace of baptism,"--when Christ Himself speaks, and says,
"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven."(4), And again, He forewarns and instructs, that no one should
be easily deceived by false prophets and false Christs in His name. "Many,"
He says, "shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive
many." And afterwards He added: "But take ye heed; behold, I have foretold
you all things."(5) Whence it appears that all things are not at once to be
received and assumed which are boasted of in the name of Christ, but only
those things which are done in the truth of Christ.
17. For whereas in the Gospels, and in the epistles of the apostles,
the name of Christ is alleged for the remission of sins; it is not in such
a way as that the Son alone, without the Father, or against the Father, can
be of advantage to anybody; but that it might be shown to the Jews, who
boasted as to their having the Father, that the Father would profit them
nothing, unless they believed on the Son whom He had sent. For they who
know God the Father the Creator, ought also to know Christ the Son, lest
they should flatter and applaud themselves about the Father alone, without
the acknowledgment of His Son, who also said, "No man cometh to the Father
but by me."(6) But He, the same, sets forth, that it is the knowledge of
the two which saves, when He says, "And this is life eternal, that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast
sent."(7) Since, therefore, from the preaching and testimony of Christ
Himself, the Father who sent must be first known, then afterwards Christ,
who was sent, and there cannot be a hope of salvation except by knowing the
two together; how, when God the Father is not known, nay, is even
blasphemed, can they who among the heretics are said to be baptized in the
name of Christ, be judged to have obtained the remission of sins? For the
case of the Jews under the apostles was one, but the condition of the
Gentiles is another. The former, because they had already gained the most
ancient baptism of the law and Moses, were to be baptized also in the name
of Jesus Christ, in conformity with what Peter tells them in the Acts of
the Apostles, saying, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive
the gift of the Holy Ghost. For this promise is unto you, and to your
children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God
shall call."(8) Peter makes mention of Jesus Christ, not as though the
Father should be omitted, but that the Son also might be joined to the
Father.
18. Finally, when, after the resurrection, the apostles are sent by the
Lord to the heathens, they are bidden to baptize the Gentiles "in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." How, then, do some
say, that a Gentile baptized without, outside the Church, yea, and in
opposition to the Church, so that it be only in the name of Jesus Christ,
everywhere, and in whatever manner, can obtain remission of sin, when
Christ Himself commands the heathen to be baptized in the full and united
Trinity? Unless while one who denies Christ is denied by Christ, he who
denies His Father whom Christ Himself confessed is not denied; and he who
blasphemes against Him whom Christ called His Lord and His God, is rewarded
by Christ, and obtains remission of sins, and the sanctification of
baptism! But by what power can he who denies God the Creator, the Father of
Christ, obtain, in baptism, the remission of sins, since Christ received
that very power by which we are baptized and sanctified, from the same
Father, whom He called "greater" than Himself, by whom He desired to be
glorified, whose will He fulfilled even unto the obedience of drinking the
cup, and of undergoing death? What else is it then, than to become a
partaker with blaspheming heretics, to wish to maintain and assert, that
one who blasphemes and gravely sins against the Father and the Lord and God
of Christ, can receive remission of sins in the name of Christ? What,
moreover, is that, and of what kind is it, that he who denies the Son of
God has not the Father, and he who denies the Father should be thought to
have the Son, although the Son Himself testifies, and says, "No man can
come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father?"(1) So that it is
evident, that no remission of sins can be received in baptism from the Son,
which it is not plain that the Father has granted. Especially, since He
further repeats, and says, "Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not
planted shall be rooted up."(2)
19. But if Christ's disciples are unwilling to learn from Christ what
veneration and honour is due to the name of the Father, still let them
learn from earthly and secular examples, and know that Christ has declared,
not without the strongest rebuke, "The children of this world are wiser in
their generation than the children of light."(3) In this world of ours, if
any one have offered an insult to the father of any; if in injury and
frowardness he have wounded his reputation and his honour by a malevolent
tongue, the son is indignant, and wrathful, and with what means he can,
strives to avenge his injured father's wrong. Think you that Christ grants
impunity to the impious and profane, and the blasphemers of His Father, and
that He puts away their sins in baptism, who it is evident, when baptized,
still heap up evil words on the person of the Father, and sin with the
unceasing wickedness of a blaspheming tongue? Can a Christian, can a
servant of God, either conceive this in his mind, or believe it in faith,
or put it forward in discourse? And what will become of the precepts of the
divine law, which say, "Honour thy father and thy mother?"(4) If the name
of father, which in man is commanded to be honoured, is violated with
impunity in God, what will become of what Christ Himself lays down in the
Gospel, and says, "He that curseth father or mother, let him die the
death;"(5) if He who bids that those who curse their parents after the
flesh should be punished and slain, Himself quickens those who revile their
heavenly and spiritual Father, and are hostile to the Church, their Mother?
An execrable and detestable thing is actually asserted by some, that He who
threatens the man who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, that he shall be
guilty of eternal sin, Himself condescends to sanctify those who blaspheme
against God the Father with saving baptism. And now, those who think that
they must communicate with such as come to the Church without baptism, do
not consider that they are becoming partakers with other men's, yea, with
eternal sins, when they admit without baptism those who cannot, except in
baptism, put off the sins of their blasphemies.
20. Besides, how vain and perverse a thing it is, that when the
heretics themselves, having repudiated and forsaken either the error or the
wickedness in which they had previously been, acknowledge the truth of the
Church, we should mutilate the rights and sacrament of that same truth, and
say to those who come to us and repent, that they had obtained remission of
sins when they confess that they have sinned, and are for that reason come
to seek the pardon of the Church! Wherefore, dearest brother, we ought both
firmly to maintain the faith and truth of the Catholic Church, and to
teach, and by all the evangelical and apostolical precepts to set forth,
the plan of the divine dispensation and unity.
21. Can the power of baptism be greater or of more avail than
confession, than suffering, when one confesses Christ before men and is
baptized in his own blood? And yet even this baptism does not benefit a
heretic, although he has confessed Christ, and been put to death outside
the Church, unless the patrons and advocates of heretics declare that the
heretics who are slain in a false confession of Christ are martyrs, and
assign to them the glory and the crown of martyrdom contrary to the
testimony of the apostle, who says that it will profit them nothing
although they were burnt and slain.(6) But if not even the baptism of a
public confession and blood can profit a heretic to salvation, because
there is no salvation out of the Church,(7) how much less shall it be of
advantage to him, if in a hiding-place and a cave of robbers, stained with
the contagion of adulterous water, he has not only not put off his old
sins, but rather heaped up still newer and greater ones! Wherefore baptism
cannot be common to us and to heretics, to whom neither God the Father, nor
Christ the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, nor the faith, nor the Church itself,
is common. And therefore it behoves those to be baptized who come from
heresy to the Church, that so they who are prepared, in the lawful, and
true, and only baptism of the holy Church, by divine regeneration, for the
kingdom of God, may be born of both sacraments, because it is written,
"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God."(1)
22. On which place some, as if by human reasoning they were able to
make void the truth of the Gospel declaration, object to us the case of
catechumens; asking if any one of these, before he is baptized in the
Church, should be apprehended and slain on confession of the name, whether
he would lose the hope of salvation and the reward of confession, because
he had not previously been born again of water? Let men of this kind, who
are aiders and favourers of heretics, know therefore, first, that those
catechumens hold the sound faith and truth of the Church, and advance from
the divine camp to do battle with the devil, with a full and sincere
acknowledgment of God the Father, and of Christ, and of the Holy Ghost;
then, that they certainly are not deprived of the sacrament of baptism who
are baptized with the most glorious and greatest baptism of blood,
concerning which the Lord also said, that He had "another baptism to be
baptized with."(2) But the same Lord declares in the Gospel, that those who
are baptized in their own blood, and sanctified by suffering, are
perfected, and obtain the grace of the divine promise, when He speaks to
the thief believing and confessing in His very passion, and promises that
he should be with Himself in paradise. Wherefore we who are set over the
faith and truth ought not to deceive and mislead those who come to the
faith and truth, and repent, and beg that their sins should be remitted to
them; but to instruct them when corrected by us, and reformed for the
kingdom of heaven by celestial discipline.
23. But some one says, "What, then, shall become of those who in past
times, coming from heresy to the Church, were received without baptism?"
The Lord is able by His mercy to give indulgence,(3) and not to separate
from the gifts of His Church those who by simplicity were admitted into the
Church, and in the Church have fallen asleep. Nevertheless it does not
follow that, because there was error at one time, there must always be
error; since it is more fitting for wise and God-fearing men, gladly and
without delay to obey the truth when laid open and perceived, than
pertinaciously and obstinately to struggle against brethren and fellow-
priests on behalf of heretics.
24. Nor let any one think that, because baptism is proposed to them,
heretics will be kept back from coming to the Church, as if offended at the
name of a second baptism; nay, but on this very account they are rather
driven to the necessity of coming by the testimony of truth shown and
proved to them. For if they shall see that it is determined and decreed by
our judgment and sentence, that the baptism wherewith they are there
baptized is considered just and legitimate, they will think that they are
justly and legitimately in possession of the Church also, and the other
gifts of the Church; nor will there be any reason for their coming to us,
when, as they have baptism, they seem also to have the rest. But further,
when they know that there is no baptism without, and that no remission of
sins can be given outside the Church, they more eagerly and readily hasten
to us, and implore the gifts and benefits of the Church our Mother, assured
that they can in no wise attain to the true promise of divine grace unless
they first come to the truth of the Church. Nor will heretics refuse to be
baptized among us with the lawful and true baptism of the Church, when they
shall have learnt from us that they also were baptized by Paul, who already
had been baptized with the baptism of John,(4) as we read in the Acts of
the Apostles.
25. And now by certain of us the baptism of heretics is asserted to
occupy the (like) ground, and, as if by a certain dislike of re-baptizing,
it is counted unlawful to baptize after God's enemies. And this, although
we find that they were baptized whom John had baptized: John, esteemed the
greatest among the prophets; John, filled with divine grace even in his
mother's womb; who was sustained with the spirit and power of Elias; who
was not an adversary of the Lord, but His precursor and announcer; who not
only foretold our Lord in words, but even showed Him to the eyes; who
baptized Christ Himself by whom others are baptized. But if on that account
a heretic could obtain the right of baptism, because he first baptized,
then baptism will not belong to the person that has it, but to the person
that seizes it. And since baptism and the Church can by no means be
separated from one another, and divided, he who has first been able to lay
hold on baptism has equally also laid hold on the Church; and you begin to
appear to him as a heretic, when you being anticipated, have begun to be
last, and by yielding and giving way have relinquished the right which you
had received. But how dangerous it is in divine matters, that any one
should depart from his right and power, Holy Scripture declares when, in
Genesis, Esau thence lost his birthright, nor was able afterwards to regain
that which he had once given up.
26. These things, dearest brother, I have briefly written to you,
according to my abilities, prescribing to none, and prejudging none, so as
to prevent any one of the bishops doing what he thinks well, and having the
free exercise of his judgment.(1) We, as far as in us lies, do not contend
on behalf of heretics with our colleagues and fellow-bishops, with whom we
maintain a divine concord and the peace of the Lord;(1) especially since
the apostle says, "If any man, however, is thought to be contentious, we
have no such custom, neither the Church of God."(2) Charity of spirit, the
honour of our college, the bond of faith, and priestly concord, are
maintained by us with patience and gentleness. For this reason, moreover,
we have with the best of our poor abilities, with the permission and
inspiration of the Lord, written a treatise(3) on the "Benefit of
Patience," which for the sake of our mutual love we have transmitted to
you. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LXXIII.(4)
TO POMPEY, AGAINST THE EPISTLE OF STEPHEN ABOUT THE BAPTISM OF HERETICS.
ARGUMENT.--THE PURPORT OF THIS EPISTLE IS GIVEN IN ST. AUGUSTINE'S "CONTRA
DONATISTAS," LIB. V. CAP. 23. HE SAYS THERE: "CYPRIAN,MOREOVER, WRITES TO
POMPEY ON THE SAME SUBJECT, WHEN HE PLAINLY SIGNIFIES THAT STEPHEN, WHO,
AS WE LEARN, WAS THEN A BISHOP OF THE ROMAN CHURCH, NOT ONLY DID NOT AGREE
WITH HIM ON THOSE POINTS, BUT EVEN HAD WRITTEN AND CHARGED IN OPPOSITION TO
HIM."(5)
1. Cyprian to his brother Pompeius, greeting. Although I have fully
comprised what is to be said concerning the baptism of heretics in the
letters of which I sent you copies, dearest brother, yet, since you have
desired that what Stephen our brother replied to my letters should be
brought to your knowledge, I have sent you a copy of his reply; on the
reading of which, you will more and more observe his error in endeavouring
to maintain the cause of heretics against Christians, and against the
Church of God.(6) For among other matters, which were either haughtily
assumed, or were not pertaining to the matter, or contradictory to his own
view, which he unskilfully and without foresight wrote, he moreover added
this saying: "If any one, therefore, come to you from any heresy whatever,
let nothing be innovated (or done) which has not been handed down, to wit,
that hands be imposed on him for repentance;(7) since the heretics
themselves, in their own proper character, do not baptize such as come to
them from one another, but only admit them to communion."
2. He forbade one coming from any heresy to be baptized in the Church;
that is, he judged the baptism of all heretics to be just and lawful. And
although special heresies have special baptisms and different sins, he,
holding communion with the baptism of all, gathered up the sins of all,
heaped together into his own bosom. And he charged that nothing should be
innovated except what had been handed down; as if he were an innovator,
who, holding the unity, claims for the one Church one baptism; and not
manifestly he who, forgetful of unity, adopts the lies and the contagions
of a profane washing. Let nothing be innovated, says he, nothing
maintained, except what has been handed down. Whence is that tradition?
Whether does it descend from the authority of the Lord and of the Gospel,
or does it come from the commands and the epistles of the apostles? For
that those things which are written must be done, God witnesses and
admonishes, saying to Joshua the son of Nun: "The book of this law shall
not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate in it day and night,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written
therein."(8) Also the Lord, sending His apostles, commands that the nations
should be baptized, and taught to observe all things which He commanded.
If, therefore, it is either prescribed in the Gospel, or contained in the
epistles or Acts of the Apostles, that those who come from any heresy
should not be baptized, but only hands laid upon them to repentance, let
this divine and holy tradition be observed. But if everywhere heretics are
called nothing else than adversaries and antichrists, if they are
pronounced to be people to be avoided, and to be perverted and condemned of
their own selves, wherefore is it that they should not be thought worthy of
being condemned by us, since it is evident from the apostolic testimony(1)
that they are of their own selves condemned? So that no one ought to defame
the apostles as if they had approved of the baptisms of heretics, or had
communicated with them without the Church's baptism, when they, the
apostles, wrote such things of the heretics. And this, too, while as yet
the more terrible plagues of heresy had not broken forth; while Marcion of
Pontus had not yet emerged from Pontus, whose master Cerdon came to Rome,--
while Hyginus was still bishop, who was the ninth bishop in that city,--
whom Marcion followed, and with greater impudence adding other enhancements
to his crime, and more daringly set himself to blaspheme against God the
Father, the Creator, and armed with sacrilegious arms the heretical madness
that rebelled against the Church with greater wickedness and determination.
3. But if it is evident that subsequently heresies became more numerous
and worse; and if, in time past, it was never at all prescribed nor written
that only hands should be laid upon a heretic for repentance, and that so
he might be communicated with; and if there is only one baptism, which is
with us, and is within, and is granted of the divine condescension to the
Church alone, what obstinacy is that, or what presumption, to prefer human
tradition to divine ordinance, and not to observe that God is indignant and
angry as often as human tradition relaxes and passes by the divine
precepts, as He cries out, and says by Isaiah the prophet, "This people
honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain
do they worship me, teaching the doctrines and commandments of men."(2)
Also the Lord in the Gospel, similarly rebuking and reproving, utters and
says, "Ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own
tradition."(3) Mindful of which precept, the blessed Apostle Paul himself
also warns and instructs, saying, "If any man teach otherwise, and consent
not to the wholesome words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to His doctrine,
he is proud, knowing nothing: from such withdraw thyself."(4)
4. Certainly an excellent and lawful tradition is set before us by the
teaching of our brother Stephen, which may afford us a suitable authority!
For in the same place of his epistle he has added and continued: "Since
those who are specially heretics do not baptize those who come to them from
one another, but only receive them to communion." To this point of evil has
the Church of God and spouse of Christ been developed, that she follows the
examples of heretics; that for the purpose of celebrating the celestial
sacraments, light should borrow her discipline from darkness, and
Christians should do that which antichrists do. But what is that blindness
of soul, what is that degradation of faith, to refuse to recognise the
unity(5) which comes from God the Father, and from the tradition of Jesus
Christ the Lord and our God! For if the Church is not with heretics,
therefore, because it is one, and cannot be divided; and if thus the Holy
Spirit is not there, because He is one, and cannot be among profane
persons, and those who are without; certainly also baptism, which consists
in the same unity, cannot be among heretics, because it can neither be
separated from the Church nor from the Holy Spirit.
5. Or if they attribute the effect of baptism to the majesty of the
name, so that they who are baptized anywhere and anyhow, in the name of
Jesus Christ, are judged to be renewed and sanctified; wherefore, in the
name of the same Christ, are not hands laid upon the baptized persons among
them, for the reception of the Holy Spirit? Why does not the same majesty
of the same name avail in the imposition of hands, which, they contend,
availed in the sanctification of baptism? For if any one born out of the
Church can become God's temple, why cannot the Holy Spirit also be poured
out upon the temple? For he who has been sanctified, his sins being put
away in baptism, and has been spiritually reformed into a new man, has
become fitted for receiving the Holy Spirit; since the apostle says, "As
many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ."(6) He
who, having been baptized among the heretics, is able to put on Christ, may
much more receive the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent. Otherwise He who is
sent will be greater than Him who sends; so that one baptized without may
begin indeed to put on Christ, but not to be able to receive the Holy
Spirit, as if Christ could either be put on without the Spirit, or the
Spirit be separated from Christ. Moreover, it is silly to say, that
although the second birth is spiritual, by which we are born in Christ
through the layer of regeneration, one may be born spiritually among the
heretics, where they say that the Spirit is not. For water alone is not
able to cleanse away sins, and to sanctify a man, unless he have also the
Holy Spirit.(1) Wherefore it is necessary that they should grant the Holy
Spirit to be there, where they say that baptism is; or else there is no
baptism where the Holy Spirit is not, because there cannot be baptism
without the Spirit.
6. But what a thing it is, to assert and contend that they who are not
born in the Church can be the sons of God! For the blessed apostle sets
forth and proves that baptism is that wherein the old man dies and the new
man is born, saying, "He saved us by the washing of regeneration."(2) But
if regeneration is in the washing, that is, in baptism, how can heresy,
which is not the spouse of Christ, generate sons to God by Christ? For it
is the Church alone which, conjoined and united with Christ, spiritually
bears sons; as the same apostle again says, "Christ loved the Church, and
gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it with the
washing of water."(3) If, then, she is the beloved and spouse who alone is
sanctified by Christ, and alone is cleansed by His washing, it is manifest
that heresy, which is not the spouse of Christ, nor can be cleansed nor
sanctified by His washing, cannot bear sons to God.(4)
7. But further, one is not born by the imposition of hands when he
receives the Holy Ghost, but in baptism, that so, being already born, he
may receive the Holy Spirit, even as it happened in the first man Adam. For
first God formed him, and then breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life. For the Spirit cannot be received, unless he who receives first have
an existence. But as the birth of Christians is in baptism, while the
generation and sanctification of baptism are with the spouse of Christ
alone, who is able spiritually to conceive and to bear sons to God, where
and of whom and to whom is he born, who is not a son of the Church, so as
that he should have God as his Father, before he has had the Church for his
Mother? But as no heresy at all, and equally no schism, being without, can
have the sanctification of saving baptism, why has the bitter obstinacy of
our brother Stephen broken forth to such an extent, as to contend that sons
are born to God from the baptism of Marcion; moreover, of Valentinus and
Apelles, and of others who blaspheme against God the Father; and to say
that remission of sins is granted in the name of Jesus Christ where
blasphemy is uttered against the Father and against Christ the Lord God?
8. In which place, dearest brother, we must consider, for the sake of
the faith and the religion of the sacerdotal office which we discharge,
whether the account can be satisfactory in the day of judgment for a priest
of God, who maintains, and approves, and acquiesces in the baptism of
blasphemers, when the Lord threatens, and says, "And now, O ye priests,
this commandment is for you: if ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it
to heart to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord Almighty, I will even
send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings."(5) Does he give
glory to God, who communicates with the baptism of Marcion? Does he give
glory to God, who judges that remission of sins is granted among those who
blaspheme against God? Does he give glory to God, who affirms that sons are
born to God without, of an adulterer and a harlot? Does he give glory to
God, who does not hold the unity and truth that arise from the divine law,
but maintains heresies against the Church? Does he give glory to God, who,
a friend of heretics and an enemy to Christians, thinks that the priests of
God, who support the truth of Christ and the unity of the Church, are to be
excommunicated?(6) If glory is thus given to God, if the fear and the
discipline of God is thus preserved by His worshippers and His priests, let
us cast away our arms; let us give ourselves up to captivity; let us
deliver to the devil the ordination of the Gospel, the appointment of
Christ, the majesty of God; let the sacraments of the divine warfare be
loosed; let the standards of the heavenly camp be betrayed; and let the
Church succumb and yield to heretics, light to darkness, faith to perfidy,
hope to despair, reason to error, immortality to death, love to hatred,
truth to falsehood, Christ to Antichrist! Deservedly thus do heresies and
schisms arise day by day, more frequently and more fruitfully grow up, and
with serpents' locks shoot forth and cast out against the Church of God
with greater force the poison of their venom; whilst, by the advocacy of
some, both authority and support are afforded them; whilst their baptism is
defended, whilst faith, whilst truth, is betrayed;(7) whilst that which is
done without against the Church is defended within in the very Church
itself.
9. But if there be among us, most beloved brother, the fear of God, if
the maintenance of the faith prevail, if we keep the precepts of Christ, if
we guard the incorrupt and inviolate sanctity of His spouse, if the words
of the Lord abide in our thoughts and hearts, when he says, "Thinkest thou,
when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth"(1) then,
because we are God's faithful soldiers, who war for the faith and sincere
religion of God, let us keep the camp entrusted to us by God with faithful
valour. Nor ought custom, which had crept in among some, to prevent the
truth from prevailing and conquering; for custom without truth is the
antiquity of error.(2) On which account, let us forsake the error and
follow the truth, knowing that in Esdras also the truth conquers, as it is
written: "Truth endureth and grows strong to eternity, and lives and
prevails for ever and ever. With her there is no accepting of persons or
distinctions; but what is just she does: nor in her judgments is there
unrighteousness, but the strength, and the kingdom, and the majesty, and
the power of all ages. Blessed be the Lord God of truth!"(3) This truth
Christ showed to us in His Gospel, and said, "I am the truth."(4)
Wherefore, if we are in Christ, and have Christ in us, if we abide in the
truth, and the truth abides in us, let us keep fast those things which are
true.
10. But it happens, by a love of presumption and of obstinacy, that one
would rather maintain his own evil and false position, than agree in the
right and true which belongs to another. Looking forward to which, the
blessed Apostle Paul writes to Timothy, and warns him that a bishop must
not be "litigious, nor contentious, but gentle and teachable."(5) Now he is
teachable who is meek and gentle to the patience of learning. For it
behoves a bishop not only to teach, but also to learn; because he also
teaches better who daily increases and advances by learning better; which
very thing, moreover, the same Apostle Paul teaches, when he admonishes,
"that if anything better be revealed to one sitting by, the first should
hold his peace."(6) But there is a brief way for religious and simple
minds, both to put away error, and to find and to elicit truth. For if we
return to the head and source of divine tradition, human error ceases; and
having seen the reason of the heavenly sacraments, whatever lay hid in
obscurity under the gloom and cloud of darkness, is opened into the light
of the truth. If a channel supplying water, which formerly flowed
plentifully and freely, suddenly fail, do we not go to the fountain, that
there the reason of the failure may be ascertained, whether from the drying
up of the springs the water has failed at the fountainhead, or whether,
flowing thence free and full, it has failed in the midst of its course;
that so, if it has been caused by the fault of an interrupted or leaky
channel, that the constant stream does not flow uninterruptedly and
continuously, then the channel being repaired and strengthened, the water
collected may be supplied for the use and drink of the city, with the same
fertility and plenty with which it issues from the spring? And this it
behoves the priests of God to do now, if they would keep the divine
precepts, that if in any respect the truth have wavered and vacillated, we
should return to our original and Lord, and to the evangelical and
apostolical tradition; and thence may arise the ground of our action,
whence has taken rise both our order and our origin.(7)
11. For it has been delivered to us, that there is one God, and one
Christ, and one hope, and one faith, and one Church, and one baptism
ordained only in the one Church, from which unity whosoever will depart
must needs be found with heretics; and while he upholds them against the
Church, he impugns the sacrament of the divine tradition. The sacrament of
which unity we see expressed also in the Canticles, in the person of
Christ, who says, "A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a fountain
sealed, a well of living water, a garden with the fruit of apples."(8) But
if His Church is a garden enclosed, and a fountain sealed, how can he who
is not in the Church enter into the same garden, or drink from its
fountain? Moreover, Peter himself, showing and vindicating the unity, has
commanded and warned us that we cannot be saved, except by the one only
baptism of one Church. "In the ark," says he, "of Noah, few, that is, eight
souls, were saved by water, as also baptism shall in like manner save
you."(9) In how short and spiritual a summary has he set forth the
sacrament of unity! For as, in that baptism of the world in which its
ancient iniquity was purged away, he who was not in the ark of Noah could
not be saved by water, so neither can he appear to be saved by baptism who
has not been baptized in the Church which is established in the unity(10)
of the Lord according to the sacrament of the one ark.
12. Therefore, dearest brother, having explored and seen the truth; it
is observed and held by us, that all who are converted from any heresy
whatever to the Church must be baptized by the only and lawful baptism of
the Church, with the exception of those who had previously been baptized in
the Church, and so had passed over to the heretics.(1) For it behoves
these, when they return, having repented, to be received by the imposition
of hands only, and to be restored by the shepherd to the sheep-fold whence
they had strayed. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell.
EPISTLE LXXIV.(2)
FIRMILIAN, BISHOP OF CAESAREA IN CAPPADOCIA, TO CYPRIAN, AGAINST THE LETTER
OF STEPHEN. A.D. 256.
ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THIS LETTER IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS THAT OF THE
PREVIOUS ONE, BUT WRITTEN WITH A LITTLE MORE VEHEMENCE AND ACERBITY THAN
BECOMES A BISHOP,(3) CHIEFLY FOR THE REASON, AS MAY BE SUSPECTED, THAT
STEPHEN HAD ALSO WRITTEN ANOTHER LETTER TO FIRMILIANUS, HELENUS, AND OTHER
BISHOPS OF THOSE PARTS.(4)
1. Firmilianus to Cyprian, his brother in the Lord, greeting. We have
received by Rogatian, our beloved deacon, the letter sent by you which you
wrote to us, well-beloved brother; and we gave the greatest thanks to the
Lord, because it has happened that we who are separated from one another in
body are thus united in spirit, as if we were not only occupying one
country, but inhabiting together one and the self-same house. Which also it
is becoming for us to say, because, indeed, the spiritual house of God is
one. "For it shall come to pass in the last days," saith the prophet, "that
the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest, and the house of God above the
tops of the mountains."(5) Those that come together into this house are
united with gladness, according to what is asked from the Lord in the
psalm, to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of one's life. Whence
in another place also it is made manifest, that among the saints there is
great and desirous love for assembling together. "Behold," he says, "how
good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity! "(6)
2. For unity and peace and concord afford the greatest pleasure not
only to men who believe and know the truth, but also to heavenly angels
themselves, to whom the divine word says it is a joy when one sinner
repents and returns to the bond of unity. But assuredly this would not be
said of the angels, who have their conversation in heaven, unless they
themselves also were united to us, who rejoice at our unity; even as, on
the other hand, they are assuredly saddened when they see the diverse minds
and the divided wills of some, as if not only they do not together invoke
one and the same God, but as if, separated and divided from one another,
they can neither have a common conversation nor discourse.(7) Except that
we may in this matter give thanks to Stephen, that it has now happened
through his unkindness that we receive the proof of your faith and wisdom.
But although we have received the favour of this benefit on account of
Stephen, certainly Stephen has not done anything deserving of kindness and
thanks. For neither can Judas be thought worthy by his perfidy and
treachery wherewith he wickedly dealt concerning the Saviour, as though he
had been the cause of such great advantages, that through him the world and
the people of the Gentiles were delivered by the Lord's passion.
3. But let these things which were done by Stephen be passed by for the
present, lest, while we remember his audacity and pride, we bring a more
lasting sadness on ourselves from the things that he has wickedly done.(8)
And knowing, concerning you, that you have settled this matter, concerning
which there is now a question, according to the rule of truth and the
wisdom of Christ; we have exulted with great joy, and have given God thanks
that we have found in brethren placed at such a distance such a unanimity
of faith and truth with us. For the grace of God is mighty to associate and
join together in the bond of charity and unity even those things which seem
to be divided by a considerable space of earth, according to the way in
which of old also the divine power associated in the bond of unanimity
Ezekiel and Daniel, though later in their age, and separated from them by a
long space of time, to Job and Noah, who were among the first; so that
although they were separated by long periods, yet by divine inspiration
they felt the same truths. And this also we now observe in you, that you
who are separated from us by the most extensive regions, approve yourselves
to be, nevertheless, joined with us in mind and spirit. All which arises
from the divine unity. For even as the Lord who dwells in us is one and the
same, He everywhere joins and couples His own people in the bond of unity,
whence their sound has gone out into the whole earth, who are sent by the
Lord swiftly running in the spirit of unity; as, on the other hand, it is
of no advantage that some are very near and joined together bodily, if in
spirit and mind they differ, since souls cannot at all be united which
divide themselves from God's unity. "For, lo," it says, "they that are far
from Thee shall perish."(1) But such shall undergo the judgment of God
according to their desert, as depart from His words who prays to the Father
for unity, and says, "Father, grant that, as Thou and I are one, so they
also may be one in us."(2)
4. But we receive those things which you have written as if they were
our own; nor do we read them cursorily, but by frequent repetition have
committed them to memory. Nor does it hinder saving usefulness, either to
repeat the same things for the confirmation of the truth, or, moreover, to
add some things for the sake of accumulating proof. But if anything has
been added by us, it is not added as if there had been too little said by
you; but since the divine discourse surpasses human nature, and the soul
cannot conceive or grasp the whole and perfect word, therefore also the
number of prophets is so great, that the divine wisdom in its multiplicity
may be distributed through many. Whence also he who first speaks in
prophecy is bidden to be silent if a revelation be made to a second. For
which reason it happens of necessity among us, that year by year we, the
elders and prelates, assemble together to arrange those matters which are
committed to our care, so that if any things are more serious they may be
directed by the common counsel. Moreover, we do this that some remedy may
be sought for by repentance for lapsed brethren, and for those wounded by
the devil after the saving layer, not as though they obtained remission of
sins from us, but that by our means they may be converted to the
understanding of their sins, and may be compelled to give fuller
satisfaction to the Lord.
5. But since that messenger sent by you was in haste to return to you,
and the winter season was pressing, we replied what we could to your
letter. And indeed, as respects what Stephen has said, as though the
apostles forbade those who come from heresy to be baptized, and delivered
this also to be observed by their successors, you have replied most
abundantly, that no one is so foolish as to believe that the apostles
delivered this, when it is even well known that these heresies themselves,
execrable and detestable as they are, arose subsequently; when even Marcion
the disciple of Cerdo is found to have introduced his sacrilegious
tradition against God long after the apostles, and after long lapse of time
from them. Apelles, also consenting to his blasphemy, added many other new
and more important matters hostile to faith and truth. But also the time of
Valentinus and Basilides is manifest, that they too, after the apostles,
and after a long period, rebelled against the Church of God with their
wicked lies. It is plain that the other heretics, also, afterwards
introduced their evil sects and perverse inventions, even as every one was
led by error; all of whom, it is evident, were self-condemned, and have
declared against themselves an inevitable sentence before the day of
judgment; and he who confirms the baptism of these, what else does he do
but adjudge himself with them, and condemn himself, making himself a
partaker with such?
6. But that they who are at Rome do not observe those things in all
cases which are handed down from the beginning, and vainly pretend the
authority of the apostles;(3) any one may know also from the fact, that
concerning the celebration of Easter, and concerning many other sacraments
of divine matters, he may see that there are some diversities among them,
and that all things are not observed among them alike, which are observed
at Jerusalem, just as in very many other provinces also many things are
varied because of the difference of the places and names.(4) And yet on
this account there is no departure at all from the peace and unity of the
Catholic Church, such as Stephen has now dared to make;(5) breaking the
peace against you, which his predecessors have always kept with you in
mutual love and honour, even herein defaming Peter and Paul the blessed
apostles,(5) as if the very men delivered this who in their epistles
execrated heretics, and warned us to avoid them. Whence it appears that
this tradition is of men which maintains heretics, and asserts that they
have baptism, which belongs to the Church alone.
7. But, moreover, you have well answered that part where Stephen said
in his letter that heretics themselves also are of one mind in respect of
baptism; and that they do not baptize such as come to them from one
another, but only communicate with them; as if we also ought to do this. In
which place, although you have already proved that it is sufficiently
ridiculous for any one to follow those that are in error, yet we add this
moreover, over and above, that it is not wonderful for heretics to act
thus, who, although in some lesser matters they differ, yet in that which
is greatest they hold one and the same agreement to blaspheme the Creator,
figuring for themselves certain dreams and phantasms of an unknown God.
Assuredly it is but natural that these should agree in having a baptism
which is unreal,(1) in the same way as they agree in repudiating the truth
of the divinity. Of whom, since it is tedious to reply to their several
statements, either wicked or foolish, it is sufficient shortly to say in
sum, that they who do not hold the true Lord the Father cannot hold the
truth either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit; according to which also they
who are called Cataphrygians, and endeavour to claim to themselves new
prophecies, can have neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy
Spirit,(2) of whom, if we ask what Christ they announce, they will reply
that they preach Him who sent the Spirit that speaks by Montanus and
Prisca. And in these, when we observe that there has been not the spirit of
truth, but of error, we know that they who maintain their false prophesying
against the faith of Christ cannot have Christ. Moreover, all other
heretics, if they have separated themselves from the Church of God, can
have nothing of power or of grace, since all power and grace are
established in the Church where the elders(3) preside, who possess the
power both of baptizing, and of imposition of hands, and of ordaining. For
as a heretic may not lawfully ordain nor lay on hands, so neither may he
baptize, nor do any thing holily or spiritually, since he is an alien from
spiritual and deifying sanctity. All which we some time back confirmed in
Iconium, which is a place in Phrygia, when we were assembled together with
those who had gathered from Galatia and Cilicia, and other neighbouring
countries, as to be held and firmly vindicated against heretics, when there
was some doubt in certain minds concerning that matter.(4)
8. And as Stephen and those who agree with him contend that putting
away of sins and second birth may result from the baptism of heretics,
among whom they themselves confess that the Holy Spirit is not; let them
consider and understand that spiritual birth cannot be without the Spirit;
in conformity with which also the blessed Apostle Paul baptized anew with a
spiritual baptism those who had already been baptized by John before the
Holy Spirit had been sent by the Lord, and so laid hands on them that they
might receive the Holy Ghost. But what kind of a thing is it, that when we
see that Paul, after John's baptism, baptized his disciples again, we are
hesitating to baptize those who come to the Church from heresy after their
unhallowed and profane dipping. Unless, perchance, Paul was inferior to the
bishops of these times, so that these indeed can by imposition of hands
alone give the Holy Spirit to those heretics who come (to the Church),
while Paul was not fitted to give the Holy Spirit by imposition of hands to
those who had been baptized by John, unless he had first baptized them also
with the baptism of the Church.
9. That, moreover, is absurd, that they do not think it is to be
inquired who was the person that baptized, for the reason that he who has
been baptized may have obtained grace by the invocation of the Trinity, of
the names of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Then this
will be the wisdom which Paul writes is in those who are perfected. But who
in the Church is perfect and wise who can either defend or believe this,
that this bare invocation of names is sufficient to the remission of sins
and the sanctification of baptism; since these things are only then of
advantage, when both he who baptizes has the Holy Spirit, and the baptism
itself also is not ordained without the Spirit? But, say they, he who in
any manner whatever is baptized without, may obtain the grace of baptism by
his disposition and faith, which doubtless is ridiculous in itself, as if
either a wicked disposition could attract to itself from heaven the
sanctification of the righteous, or a false faith the truth of believers.
But that not all who call on the name of Christ are heard, and that their
invocation cannot obtain any grace, the Lord Himself manifests, saying,
"Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive
many."(5) Because there is no difference between a false prophet and a
heretic. For as the former deceives in the name of God or Christ, so the
latter deceives in the sacrament of baptism. Both strive by falsehood to
deceive men's wills.
10. But I wish to relate to you some facts concerning a circumstance
which occurred among us, pertaining to this very matter. About two-and-
twenty years ago, in the tithes after the Emperor Alexander, there happened
in these parts many struggles and difficulties, either in general to all
men, or privately to Christians. Moreover, there were many and frequent
earthquakes, so that many places were overthrown throughout Cappadocia and
Pontus; even certain cities, dragged into the abyss, were swallowed up by
the opening of the gaping earth. So that from this also a severe
persecution arose against us of the Christian name; and this after the long
peace of the previous age arose suddenly, and with its unusual evils was
made more terrible for the disturbance of our people. Se-renianus was then
governor in our province, a bitter and terrible persecutor. But the
faithful being set in this state of disturbance, and fleeing hither and
thither for fear of the persecution, and leaving their country and passing
over into other regions--for there was an opportunity of passing over, for
the reason that that persecution was not over the whole world, but was
local--there arose among us on a sudden a certain woman, who in a state of
ecstasy announced herself as a prophetess, and acted as if filled with the
Holy Ghost. And she was so moved by the impetus of the principal demons,
that for a long time she made anxious and deceived the brotherhood,
accomplishing certain wonderful and portentous things, and promised that
she would cause the earth to be shaken. Not that the power of the demon was
so great that he could prevail to shake the earth, or to disturb the
elements; but that sometimes a wicked spirit, prescient, and perceiving
that there will be an earthquake, pretends that he will do what he sees
will happen. By these lies and boastings he had so subdued the minds of
individuals, that they obeyed him and followed whithersoever he commanded
and led. He would also make that woman walk in the keen winter with bare
feet over frozen snow, and not to be troubled or hurt in any degree by that
walking. Moreover, she would say that she was hurrying to Judea and to
Jerusalem, feigning as if she had come thence. Here also she deceived one
of the presbyters, a countryman, and another, a deacon, so that they had
intercourse with that same woman, which was shortly afterwards detected.
For on a sudden there appeared unto her one of the exorcists, a man
approved and always of good conversation in respect of religious
discipline; who, stimulated by the exhortation also of very many brethren
who were themselves strong and praiseworthy in the faith, raised himself up
against that wicked spirit to overcome it; which moreover, by its subtile
fallacy, had predicted this a little while before, that a certain adverse
and unbelieving tempter would come. Yet that exorcist, inspired by God's
grace, bravely resisted, and showed that that which was before thought
holy, was indeed a most wicked spirit. But that woman, who previously by
wiles and deceitfulness of the demon was attempting many things for the
deceiving of the faithful, among other things by which she had deceived
many, also had frequently dared this; to pretend that with an invocation
not to be contemned she sanctified bread and celebrated, the Eucharist, and
to offer sacrifice to the Lord, not without the sacrament of the accustomed
utterance; and also to baptize many, making use of the usual and lawful
words of interrogation, that nothing might seem to be different from the
ecclesiastical rule.
11. What, then, shall we say about the baptism of this woman, by which a
most wicked demon baptized through means of a woman? Do Stephen and they
who agree with him approve of this also especially when neither the symbol
of the Trinity nor the legitimate and ecclesiastical interrogatory were
wanting to her? Can it be believed that either remission of sins was given,
or the regeneration of the saving layer duly completed, when all things,
although after the image of truth, yet were done by a demon? Unless,
perchance, they who defend the baptism of heretics contend that the demon
also conferred the grace of baptism in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Among them, no doubt, there is the same error-
-it is the very deceitfulness of devils, since among them the Holy Spirit
is not at all.
12. Moreover, what is the meaning of that which Stephen would assert,
that the presence and holiness of Christ is with those who are baptized
among heretics? For if the apostle does not speak falsely when he says, "As
many of you as are baptized into Christ, have put on Christ,"(2) certainly
he who has been baptized among them into Christ, has put on Christ. But if
he has put on Christ, he might also receive the Holy Ghost, who was sent by
Christ, and hands are vainly laid upon him who comes to us for the
reception of the Spirit; unless, perhaps, he has not put on the Spirit from
Christ, so that Christ indeed may be with heretics, but the Holy Spirit not
be with them.
13. But let us briefly run through the other matters also, which were
spoken of by you abundantly and most fully, especially as Rogatianus, our
well-beloved deacon, is hurrying to you. For it follows that they must be
asked by us, when they defend heretics, whether their baptism is carnal or
spiritual. For if it is carnal, they differ in no respect from the baptism
of the Jews, which they use in such a manner that in it, as if in a common
and vulgar laver, only external filth is washed away. But if it is
spiritual, how can baptism be spiritual among those among whom there is no
Holy Spirit? And thus the water wherewith they are washed is to them only a
carnal washing, not a sacrament of baptism.
14. But if the baptism of heretics can have the regeneration of the
second birth, those who are baptized among them must be counted not
heretics, but children of God. For the second birth, which occurs in
baptism, begets sons of God. But if the spouse of Christ is one, which is
the Catholic Church, it is she herself who alone bears sons of God. For
there are not many spouses of Christ, since the apostle says, "I have
espoused you, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ;"(1) and,
"Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also
thine own people, for the King hath greatly desired thy beauty;"(2) and,
"Come with me, my spouse, from Lebanon; thou shalt come, and shalt pass
over from the source of thy faith; "(3) and, "I am come into my garden, my
sister, my spouse."(4) We see that one person is everywhere set forward,
because also the spouse is one. But the synagogue of heretics is not one
with us, because the spouse is not an adulteress and a harlot. Whence also
she cannot bear children of God; unless, as appears to Stephen, heresy
indeed brings them forth and exposes them, while the Church takes them up
when exposed, and nourishes those for her own whom she has not born,
although she cannot be the mother of strange children. And therefore Christ
our Lord, setting forth that His spouse is one, and declaring the sacrament
of His unity, says, "He that is not with me is against me, and he that
gathereth not with me scattereth."(5) For if Christ is with us, but the
heretics are not with us, certainly the heretics are in opposition to
Christ; and if we gather with Christ, but the heretics do not gather with
us, doubtless they scatter.
15. But neither must we pass over what has been necessarily remarked by
you, that the Church, according to the Song of Songs, is a garden enclosed,
and a fountain sealed, a paradise with the fruit of apples.(6) They who
have never entered into this garden, and have not seen the paradise planted
by God the Creator, how shall they be able to afford to another the bring
water of the saving lava from the fountain which is enclosed within, and
sealed with a divine seal? And as the ark of Noah was nothing else than the
sacrament of the Church of Christ, which then, when all without were
perishing, kept those only safe who were within the ark, we are manifestly
instructed to look to the unity of the Church. Even as also the Apostle
Peter laid down, saying, "Thus also shall baptism in like manner make you
safe;"(7) showing that as they who were not in the ark with Noah not only
were not purged and saved by water, but at once perished in that deluge;
so now also, whoever are not in the Church with Christ will perish
outside, unless they are converted by penitence to the only and saving lava
of the Church.
16. But what is the greatness of his error, and what the depth of his
blindness, who says that remission of sins can be granted in the synagogues
of heretics, and does not abide on the foundation of the one Church which
was once based by Christ upon the rock, may be perceived from this, that
Christ said to Peter alone, "Whatsoever thou shall bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven."(8) And again, in the Gospel, when Christ breathed on the
apostles alone, saying, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye
remit they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye retain they are
retained."(9) Therefore the power of remitting sins was given to the
apostles, and to the churches which they, sent by Christ, established, and
to the bishops who succeeded to them by vicarious ordination.(10) But the
enemies of the one Catholic Church in which we are, and the adversaries of
us who have succeeded the apostles, asserting for themselves, in opposition
to us, unlawful priesthoods, and setting up profane altars, what else are
they than Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, profane with a like wickedness, and
about to suffer the same punishments which they did, as well as those who
agree with them, just as their partners and abettors perished with a like
death to theirs?
17. And in this respect I am justly indignant at this so open and
manifest folly of Stephen, that he who so boasts of the place of his
episcopate, and contends that he holds the succession from Peter," on whom
the foundations of the Church were laid, should introduce many other rocks
and establish new buildings of many churches; maintaining that there is
baptism in them by his authority. For they who are baptized, doubtless,
fill up the number of the Church. But he who approves their baptism
maintains, of those baptized, that the Church is also with them. Nor does
he understand that the truth of the Christian Rock is overshadowed, and in
some measure abolished, by him when he thus betrays and deserts unity.(12)
The apostle acknowledges that the Jews, although blinded by ignorance, and
bound by the grossest wickedness, have yet a zeal for God. Stephen, who
announces that he holds by succession the throne of Peter, is stirred with
no zeal against heretics, when he concedes to them, not a moderate, but the
very greatest power of grace: so far as to say and assert that, by the
sacrament of baptism, the filth of the old man is washed away by them, that
they pardon the former mortal sins, that they make sons of God by heavenly
regeneration, and renew to eternal life by the sanctification of the divine
layer. He who concedes and gives up to heretics in this way the great and
heavenly gifts of the Church, what else does he do but communicate with
them for whom he maintains and claims so much grace? And now he hesitates
in vain to consent to them, and to be a partaker with them in other matters
also, to meet together with them, and equally with them to mingle their
prayers, and appoint a common altar and sacrifice.
18. But, says he, "the name of Christ is of great advantage to faith
and the sanctification of baptism; so that whosoever is anywhere so-ever
baptized in the name of Christ, immediately obtains the grace of Christ:
"although this position may be briefly met and answered, that if baptism
without in the name of Christ availed for the cleansing of man; in the name
of the same Christ, the imposition of hands might avail also for the
reception of the Holy Spirit; and the other things also which are done
among heretics will begin to seem just and lawful when they are done in the
name of Christ; as you have maintained in your letter that the name of
Christ could be of no avail except in the Church alone, to which alone
Christ has conceded the power of heavenly grace.
19. But with respect to the refutation of custom which they seem to
oppose to the truth, who is so foolish as to prefer custom to truth, or
when he sees the light, not to forsake the darkness?--unless most ancient
custom in any respect avail the Jews, upon the advent of Christ, that is,
the Truth, in remaining in their old usage, and forsaking the new way of
truth. And this indeed you Africans are able to say against Stephen, that
when you knew the truth you forsook the error of custom. But we join custom
to truth, and to the Romans' custom we oppose custom, but the custom of
truth; holding from the beginning that which was delivered by Christ and
the apostles.(1) Nor do we remember that this at any time began among us,
since it has always been observed here, that we knew none but one Church of
God, and accounted no baptism holy except that of the holy Church.
Certainly, since some doubted about the baptism of those who, although they
receive the new prophets,(2) yet appear to recognise the same Father and
Son with us; very many of us meeting together in Iconium very carefully
examined the matter, and we decided that every baptism was altogether to be
rejected which is arranged for without the Church.(3)
20. But to what they allege and say on behalf of the heretics, that the
apostle said, "Whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached,"(4) it
is idle for us to reply; when it is manifest that the apostle, in his
epistle wherein he said this, made mention neither of heretics nor of
baptism of heretics, but spoke of brethren only, whether as perfidiously
speaking in agreement with himself, or as persevering in sincere faith; nor
is it needful to discuss this in a long argument, but it is sufficient to
read the epistle itself, and to gather from the apostle himself what the
apostle said.
21. What then, say they, will become of those who, coming from the
heretics, have been received without the baptism of the Church? If they
have departed this life, they are reckoned in the number of those who have
been catechumens indeed among us, but have died before they were baptized,-
-no trifling(5) advantage of truth and faith, to which they had attained by
forsaking error, although, being prevented by death, they had not gained
the consummation of grace.(6) But they who still abide in life should be
baptized with the baptism of the Church, that they may obtain remission of
sins, lest by the presumption of others they remain in their old error, and
die without the completion of grace. But what a crime is theirs on the one
hand who receive, or on the other, theirs who are received, that their
foulness not being washed away by the layer of the Church, nor their sins
put away, communion being rashly seized, they touch the body and blood of
the Lord, although it is written, "Whosoever shall eat the bread or drink
the cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of
the Lord!"(7)
22. We have judged, that those also whom they, who had formerly been
bishops in the Catholic Church, and afterwards had assumed to themselves
the power of clerical ordination, had baptized, are to be regarded as not
baptized. And this is observed among us, that whosoever dipped by them come
to us are baptized among us as strangers and having obtained nothing, with
the only and true baptism of the Catholic Church, and obtain the
regeneration of the layer of life. And yet there is a great difference
between him who unwillingly and constrained by the necessity of persecution
has given way, and him who with a profane will boldly rebels against the
Church, or with impious voice blasphemes against the Father and God of
Christ and the Creator of the whole world. And Stephen is not ashamed to
assert and to say that remission of sins can be granted by those who are
themselves set fast in all kinds of sins, as if in the house of death there
could be the layer of salvation.
23. What, then, is to be made of what is written, "Abstain from strange
water, and drink not from a strange fountain,"(1) if, leaving the sealed
fountain of the Church, you take up strange water for your own, and pollute
the Church with unhallowed fountains? For when you communicate with the
baptism of heretics, what else do you do than drink from their slough and
mud; and while you yourself are purged with the Church's sanctification,
you become befouled with the contact of the filth of others? And do you not
fear the judgment of God when you are giving testimony to heretics in
opposition to the Church, although it is written, "A false witness shall
not be unpunished?"(2) But indeed you are worse than all heretics. For when
many, as soon as their error is known, come over to you from them that they
may receive the true light of the Church, you assist the errors of those
who come, and, obscuring the light of ecclesiastical truth, you heap up the
darkness of the heretical night; and although they confess that they are in
sins, and have no grace, and therefore come to the Church, you take away
from them remission of sins, which is given in baptism, by saying that they
are already baptized and have obtained the grace of the Church outside the
Church, and you do not perceive that their souls will be required at your
hands when the day of judgment shall come, for having denied to the
thirsting the drink of the Church, and having been the occasion of death to
those that were desirious of living. And, after all this, you are
indignant!
24. Consider with what want of judgment you dare to blame those who
strive for the truth against falsehood. For who ought more justly to be
indignant against the other?--whether he who supports God's enemies, or he
who, in opposition to him who supports God's enemies, unites with us on
behalf of the truth of the Church?--except that it is plain that the
ignorant are also excited and angry, because by the want of counsel and
discourse they are easily turned to wrath; so that of none more than of you
does divine Scripture say, "A wrathful man stirreth up strifes, and a
furious man heapeth up sins."(3) For what strifes and dissensions have you
stirred up throughout the churches of the whole world! Moreover, how great
sin have you heaped up for yourself, when you cut yourself off from so many
flocks! For it is yourself that you have cut off. Do not deceive yourself,
since he is really the schismatic who has made himself an apostate from the
communion of ecclesiastical unity.(4) For while you think that all may be
excommunicated by you, you have excommunicated yourself alone from all; and
not even the precepts of an apostle have been able to mould you to the rule
of truth and peace, although he warned, and said, "I therefore, the
prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation
wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long-
suffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even
as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one
baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and
in us all."(5)
25. How carefully has Stephen fulfilled these salutary commands and
warnings of the apostle, keeping in the first place lowliness of mind and
meekness! For what is more lowly or meek than to have disagreed with so
many bishops throughout the whole world, breaking peace with each one of
them in various kinds of discord:(6) at one time with the eastern churches,
as we are sure you know; at another time with yon who are in the south,
from whom he received bishops as messengers sufficiently patiently and
meekly not to receive them even to the speech of an ordinary conference;
and even more, so mindful of love and charity as to command the entire
fraternity, that no one should receive them into his house, so that not
only peace and communion, but also a shelter and entertainment, were denied
to them when they came! This is to have kept the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace, to cut himself off from the unity of love,(7) and to make
himself a stranger in all respects from his brethren, and to rebel against
the sacrament and the faith with the madness of contumacious discord! With
such a man can there be one Spirit and one body, in whom perchance there is
not even one mind, so slippery, and shifting, and uncertain is it?
26. But as far as he is concerned, let us leave him;(7) let us rather
deal with that concerning which there is the greatest question. They who
contend that persons baptized among the heretics ought to be received as if
they had obtained the grace of lawful baptism, say that baptism is one and
the same to them and to us, and differs in no respect. But what says the
Apostle Paul? "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God."(8) If the
baptism of heretics be one and the same with ours, without doubt their
faith also is one; but if our faith is one, assuredly also we have one
Lord: if there is one Lord, it follows that we say that He is one.(1) But
if this unity which cannot be separated and divided at all, is itself also
among heretics, why do we contend any more? Why do we call them heretics
and not Christians? Moreover, since we and heretics have not one God, nor
one Lord, nor one Church, nor one faith, nor even one Spirit, nor one body,
it is manifest that neither can baptism be common to us with heretics,
since between us there is nothing at all in common. And yet Stephen is not
ashamed to afford patronage to such in opposition to the Church, and for
the sake of maintaining heretics to divide the brotherhood and in addition,
to call Cyprian "a false Christ and a false apostle, and a deceitful
worker."(2) And he, conscious that all these characters are in himself, has
been in advance of you, by falsely objecting to another those things which
he himself ought deservedly to hear. We all bid you, for all our sakes,
with all the bishops who are in Africa, and all the clergy, and all the
brotherhood, farewell; that, constantly of one mind, and thinking the same
thing, we may find you united with us even though afar off.(3)
EPISTLE LXXV.(4)
TO MAGNUS, ON BAPTIZING THE NOVATIANS, AND THOSE WHO OBTAIN GRACE ON A
SICK-BED.
ARGUMENT.--THE FORMER PART OF THIS LETTER IS OF THE SAME TENOR WITH THOSE
THAT PRECEDE, EXCEPT THAT HE INCULCATES CONCERNING THE NOVATIANS WHAT HE
HAD IN SUBSTANCE SAID CONCERNING ALL HERETICS; MOREOVER, INSINUATING BY
THE WAY THAT THE LEGITIMATE SUCCESSION OF CORNELIUS AT ROME IS KNOWN, AS
THE CHURCH MAY BE KNOWN. IN THE SECOND PART (WHICH HITHERTO, AS THE TITLE
SUFFICIENTLY INDICATES, HAS BEEN WRONGLY PUBLISHED AS A SEPARATE LETTER) HE
TEACHES THAT THAT IS A TRUE BAPTISM WHEREIN ONE IS BAPTIZED BY SPRINKLING
ON A SICK-BED, AS WELL AS BY IMMERSION IN THE CHURCH.
1. Cyprian to Magnus his son, greeting. With your usual religious
diligence, you have consulted my poor intelligence, dearest son, as to
whether, among other heretics, they also who come from Novatian ought,
after his profane washing, to be baptized, and sanctified in the Catholic
Church, with the lawful, and true, and only baptism of the Church.
Respecting which matter, as much as the capacity of my faith and the
sanctity and truth of the divine Scriptures suggest, I answer, that no
heretics and schismatics at all have any power or right. For which reason
Novatian neither ought to be nor can be expected, inasmuch as he also is
without the Church and acting in opposition to the peace and love of
Christ, from being counted among adversaries and antichrists. For our Lord
Jesus Christ, when He testified in His Gospel that those who were not with
Him were His adversaries, did not point out any species of heresy, but
showed that all whatsoever who were not with Him, and who, not gathering
with Him, were scattering His flock, were His adversaries; saying, "He that
is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me
scattereth."(5) Moreover, the blessed Apostle John himself distinguished no
heresy or schism, neither did he set down any as specially separated; but
he called all who had gone out from the Church, and who acted in opposition
to the Church, antichrists, saying, "Ye have heard that Antichrist cometh,
and even now are come many antichrists; wherefore we know that this is the
last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had
been of us, they would have continued with us."(6) Whence it appears, that
all are adversaries of the Lord and antichrists, who are known to have
departed from charity and from the unity of the Catholic Church. In
addition, moreover, the Lord establishes it in His Gospel, and says, "But
if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and
a publican."(7) Now if they who despise the Church are counted heathens and
publicans, much more certainly is it necessary that rebels and enemies, who
forge false altars, and lawless priesthoods, and sacrilegious sacrifices,
and corrupter names, should be counted among heathens and publicans; since
they who sin less, and are only despisers of the Church, are by the Lord's
sentence judged to be heathens and publicans.
2. But that the Church is one, the Holy Spirit declares in the Song of
Songs, saying, in the person of Christ, "My dove, my undefiled, is one; she
is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare
her."(8) Concerning which also He says again, "A garden enclosed is my
sister, my spouse; a spring sealed up, a well of living water."(9) But if
the spouse of Christ, which is the Church, is a garden enclosed; a thing
that is closed up cannot lie open to strangers and profane persons. And if
it is a fountain sealed, he who, being placed without has no access to the
spring, can neither drink thence nor be sealed. And the well also of living
water, if it is one and the same within, he who is placed without cannot be
quickened and sanctified from that water of which it is only granted to
those who are within to make any use, or to drink. Peter also, showing
this, set forth that the Church is one, and that only they who are in the
Church can be baptized; and said, "In the ark of Noah, few, that is, eight
souls, were saved by water; the like figure where-unto even baptism shall
save you;"(1) proving and attesting that the one ark of Noah was a type of
the one Church. If, then, in that baptism of the world thus expiated and
purified, he who was not in the ark of Noah could be saved by water, he who
is not in the Church to which alone baptism is granted, can also now be
quickened by baptism. Moreover, too, the Apostle Paul, more openly and
clearly still manifesting this same thing, writes to the Ephesians, and
says, "Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water."(2) But if the Church is
one which is loved by Christ, and is alone cleansed by His washing, how can
he who is not in the Church be either loved by Christ, or washed and
cleansed by His washing?
3. Wherefore, since the Church alone has the living water, and the
power of baptizing and cleansing man, he who says that any one can be
baptized and sanctified by Novatian must first show and teach that Novatian
is in the Church or presides over the Church. For the Church is one, and as
she is one, cannot be both within and without. For if she is with Novatian,
she was not with Cornelius.(3) But if she was with Cornelius, who succeeded
the bishop Fabian by lawful ordination, and whom, beside the honour of the
priesthood, the Lord glorified also with martyrdom, Novatian is not in the
Church; nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeeding to no one, and
despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, sprang from himself. For
he who has not been ordained in the Church can neither have nor hold to the
Church in any way.
4. For the faith of the sacred Scripture sets forth that the Church is
not without, nor can be separated nor divided against itself, but maintains
the unity of an inseparable and undivided house; since it is written of the
sacrament of the passover, and of the lamb, which Lamb designated Christ:
"In one house shall it be eaten: ye shall not carry forth the flesh abroad
out of the house."(4) Which also we see expressed concerning Rahab, who
herself also bore a type of the Church, who received the command which
said, "Thou shalt bring thy father, and thy mother, and thy brethren, and
all thy father's household unto thee into thine house; and whosoever shall
go out of the doors of thine house into the street, his blood shall be upon
him."(5) In which mystery is declared, that they who will live, and escape
from the destruction of the world, must be gathered together into one house
alone, that is, into the Church; but whosoever of those thus collected
together shall go out abroad, that is, if any one, although he may have
obtained grace in the Church, shall depart and go out of the Church, that
his blood shall be upon him; that is, that he himself must charge it upon
himself that he perishes; which the Apostle Paul explains, teaching and
enjoining that a heretic must be avoided, as perverse, and a sinner, and as
condemned of himself. For that man will be guilty of his own ruin, who, not
being cast out by the bishop, but of his own accord deserting from the
Church is by heretical presumption condemned of himself.
5. And therefore the Lord, suggesting to us a unity that comes from
divine authority, lays it down, saying, "I and my Father are one."(6) To
which unity reducing His Church, He says again, "And there shall be one
flock,(7) and one shepherd."(8) But if the flock is one, how can he be
numbered among the flock who is not in the number of the flock? Or how can
he be esteemed a pastor, who,--while the true shepherd remains and presides
over the Church of God by successive ordination,--succeeding to no one, and
beginning from himself, becomes a stranger and a profane person, an enemy
of the Lord's peace and of the divine unity, not dwelling in the house of
God, that is, in the Church of God, in which none dwell except they are of
one heart and one mind, since the Holy Spirit speaks in the Psalms, and
says, "It is God who maketh men to dwell of one mind in a house."(9)
6. Besides even the Lord's sacrifices themselves declare that Christian
unanimity is linked together with itself by a firm and inseparable charity,
For when the Lord calls bread, which is combined by the union of many
grains, His body, He indicates our people whom He bore as being united; and
when He calls the wine, which is pressed from many grapes and clusters and
collected together, His blood, He also signifies our flock linked together
by the mingling of a united multitude.(10) If Novatian is united to this
bread of the Lord, if he also is mingled with this cup of Christ, he may
also seem to be able to have the grace of the one baptism of the Church, if
it be manifest that he holds the unity of the Church. In fine, how
inseparable is the sacrament of unity, and how hopeless are they, and what
excessive ruin they earn for themselves from the indignation of God, who
make a schism, and, forsaking their bishop,(1) appoint another false bishop
for themselves without,--Holy Scripture declares in the books of Kings;
where ten tribes were divided from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, and,
forsaking their king, appointed for themselves another one without. It
says, "And the Lord was very angry with all the seed of Israel, and removed
them away, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until He had cast
them out of His sight; for Israel was scattered from the house of David,
and they made themselves a king, Jeroboam the son of Nebat."(2) It says
that the Lord was very angry, and gave them up to perdition, because they
were scattered from unity, and had made another king for themselves. And so
great was the indignation of the Lord against those who had made the
schism, that even when the man of God was sent to Jeroboam, to charge upon
him his sins, and predict the future vengeance, he was forbidden to eat
bread or to drink water with them. And when he did not observe this, and
took meat against the command of God, he was immediately smitten by the
majesty of the divine judgment, so that returning thence he was slain on
the way by the jaws of a lion which attacked him. And dares any one to say
that the saving water of baptism and heavenly grace can be in common with
schismatics, with whom neither earthly food nor worldly drink ought to be
in common? Moreover, the Lord satisfies us in His Gospel, and shows forth a
still greater light of intelligence, that the same persons who had then
divided themselves from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin, and forsaking
Jerusalem had seceded to Samaria, should be reckon among profane persons
and Gentiles. For when first He sent His disciples on the ministry of
salvation, He bade them, saying, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and
into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not."(3) Sending first to the
Jews, He commands the Gentiles as yet to be passed over; but by adding that
even the city of the Samaritans was to be omitted, where there were
schismatics, He shows that schismatics were to be put on the same level as
Gentiles.
7. But if any one objects, by way of saying that Novatian holds the
same law which the Catholic Church holds, baptizes with the same symbol
with which we baptize, knows the same God and Father, the same Christ the
Son, the same Holy Spirit, and that for this reason he may claim the power
of baptizing, namely, that he seems not to differ from us in the baptismal
interrogatory; let any one that thinks that this may be objected, know
first of all, that them is not one law of the Creed, nor the same
interrogatory common to us and to schismatics. For when they say, "Dost
thou believe the remission of sins and life eternal through the holy
Church?" they lie in their interrogatory, since they have not the Church.
Then, besides, with their own voice they themselves confess that remission
of sins cannot be given except by the holy Church; and not having this,
they show that sins cannot be remitted among them.
8. But that they are said to have the same God the Father as we, to
know the same Christ the Son, the same Holy Spirit, can be of no avail to
such as these. For even Korah, Dathan, and Abiram knew the same God as did
the priest Aaron and Moses. Living under the same law and religion, they
invoke the one and true God, who was to be invoked and worshipped; yet,
because they transgressed the ministry of their office in opposition to
Aaron the priest, who bad received the legitimate priesthood by the
condescension of God and the ordination of the Lord, and claimed to
themselves the power of sacrificing, divinely stricken, they immediately
suffered punishment for their unlawful endeavours; and sacrifices offered
irreligiously and lawlessly, contrary to the right of divine appointment,
could not be accepted, nor profit them. Even those very censers in which
incense had been lawlessly offered, lest they should any more be used by
the priests, but that they might rather exhibit a memorial of the divine
vengeance and indignation for the correction of their successors, being by
the command of the Lord melted and purged by fire, were beaten out into
flexible plates, and fastened to the altars, according to what the Holy
Scripture says, "to be," it says, "a memorial to the children of Israel,
that no stranger which is not of the seed of Aaron come near to offer
incense before the Lord, that he be not as Korah."(4) And yet those men had
not made a schism, nor had gone out abroad, and in opposition to God's
priests rebelled shamelessly and with hostility; but this these men are now
doing who divide the Church, and, as rebels against the peace and unity of
Christ, attempt to establish a throne for themselves, and to assume the
primacy,(5) and to claim the right of baptizing and of offering. How can
they complete what they do, or obtain anything by lawless endeavours from
God, seeing that they are endeavouring against God what is not lawful to
them? Wherefore they who patronize Novatian or other schismatics of that
kind, contend in vain that any one can be baptized and sanctified with a
saving baptism among them, when it is plain that he who baptizes has not
the power of baptizing.
9. And, moreover, that it may be better understood what is the divine
judgment against audacity of the like kind, we find that in such
wickedness, not only the leaders and originators, but also the partakers,
are destined to punishment, unless they have separated themselves from the
communion of the wicked; as the Lord by Moses commands, and says, "Separate
yourselves from the tents of these most hardened men, and touch nothing of
theirs, lest ye be consumed in their sins."(1) And what the Lord had
threatened by Moses He fulfilled, that whosoever had not separated himself
from Korah, and Dathan, and Abiram, immediately suffered punishment for his
impious communion. By which example is shown and proved, that all will be
liable to guilt as well as its punishment, who with irreligious boldness
mingle themselves with schismatics in opposition to prelates and priests;
even as also by the prophet Osea the Holy Spirit witnesses, and says,
"Their sacrifices shall be unto them as the bread of mourning; all that
thereof shall be polluted; "(2) teaching, doubtless, and showing that all
are absolutely joined with the leaders in punishment, who have been
contaminated by their crime.
10. What, then, can be their deservings in the sight of God, on whom
punishment are divinely denounced? or how can such persons justify and
sanctify the baptized, who, being enemies of the priests, strive to usurp
things foreign and lawless, and by no right conceded to them? And yet we do
not wonder that, in accordance with their wickedness, they do contend for
them. For it is necessary that each one of them should maintain what they
do; nor when vanquished will they easily yield, although they know that
what they do is not lawful. That is to be wondered at, yea, rather to be
indignant and aggrieved at, that Christians should support antichrists; and
that prevaricators of the faith, and betrayers of the Church, should stand
within in the Church itself.(3) And these, although otherwise obstinate and
unteachable, yet still at least confess this that all, whether heretics or
schismatics, are without the Holy Ghost, and therefore can indeed baptize,
but cannot confer the Holy Spirit; and at this very point they are held
fast by us, inasmuch as we show that those who have not the Holy Ghost are
not able to baptize at all.
11. For since in baptism every one has his own sins remitted, the Lord
proves and declares in His Gospel that sins can only be put away by those
who have the Holy Spirit. For after His resurrection, sending forth His
disciples, He speaks to them, and says, "As the Father hath sent me, even
so send I you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to
them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose soever sins ye remit, they shall be
remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they shall be
retained."(4) In which place He shows, that he alone can baptize and give
remission of sins who has the Holy Spirit. Moreover, John, who was to
baptize Christ our Lord Himself, previously received the Holy Ghost while
he was yet in his mother's womb, that it might be certain and manifest that
none can baptize save those who have the Holy Spirit. Therefore those who
patronize heretics or schismatics must answer us whether they have or have
not the Holy Ghost. If they have, why are hands imposed on those who are
baptized among them when they come to us, that they may receive the Holy
Ghost, since He must surely have been received there, where if He was He
could be given? But if heretics and schismatics baptized without have not
the Holy Spirit, and therefore hands are imposed on them among us, that
here may be received what there neither is nor can be given; it is plain,
also, that remission of sins cannot be given by those who, it is certain,
have not the Holy Spirit. And therefore, in order that, according to the
divine arrangement and the evangelical truth, they may be able to obtain
remission of sins, and to be sanctified, and to become temples of God, they
must all absolutely be baptized with the baptism of the Church who come
from adversaries and antichrists to the Church of Christ.
12. You have asked also, dearest son, what I thought of those who
obtain God's grace in sickness and weakness, whether they are to be
accounted legitimate Christians, for that they are not to be washed, but
sprinkled, with the saving water. In this point, my diffidence and modesty
prejudges none, so as to prevent any from feeling what he thinks right,
and from doing what he feels to be right.(5) As far as my poor
understanding conceives it, I think that the divine benefits can in no
respect be mutilated and weakened; nor can anything less occur in that
case, where, with full and entire faith both of the giver and receiver, is
accepted what is drawn from the divine gifts. For in the sacrament of
salvation the contagion of sins is not in such wise washed away, as the
filth of the skin and of the body is washed away in the carnal and ordinary
washing, as that there should be need of saltpetre and other appliances
also, and a bath and a basin wherewith this vile body must be washed and
purified. Otherwise is the breast of the believer washed; otherwise is the
mind of man purified by the merit of faith. In the sacraments of salvation,
when necessity compels, and God bestows His mercy, the divine methods
confer the whole benefit on believers; nor ought it to trouble any one that
sick people seem to be sprinkled or affused, when they obtain the Lord's
grace, when Holy Scripture speaks by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, and
says, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean:
from alI your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. And I
will give you a new heart, and a new spirit will I put within you."(1) Also
in Numbers: "And the man that shall be unclean until the evening shall be
purified on the third day, and on the seventh day shall be clean: but if he
shall not be purified on the third day, on the seventh day he shall not be
clean. And that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of
sprinkling hath not been sprinkled upon him."(2) And again: "And the Lord
spake unto Moses saying, Take the Levites from among the children of
Israel, and cleanse them. And thus shalt thou do unto them, to cleanse
them: thou shall sprinkle them with the water of purification."(3) And
again: "The water of sprinkling is a purification."(4) Whence it appears
that the sprinkling also of water prevails equally with the washing of
salvation; and that when this is done in the Church, where the faith both
of receiver and giver is sound, all things hold and may be con- summated
and perfected by the majesty of the Lord and by the truth of faith.
13. But, moreover, in respect of some calling those who have
obtained the peace of Christ by the saving water and by legitimate faith,
not Christians, but Clinics, I do not find whence they take up this name,
unless perhaps, having read more, and of a more recondite kind, they have
taken these Clinics from Hippocrates or Soranus.(5) For I, who know of a
Clinic in the Gospel, know that to that paralytic and infirm man, who lay
on his bed during the long course of his life, his infirmity presented no
obstacle to his attainment in the fullest degree of heavenly strength. Nor
was he only raised from his bed by the divine indulgence, but he also took
up his bed itself with his restored and increased strength. And therefore,
as far as it is allowed me by faith to conceive and to think, this is my
opinion, that any one should be esteemed a legitimate Christian, who by the
law and right of faith shall have obtained the grace of God in the Church.
Or if any one think that those have gained nothing by having only been
sprinkled with the saving water, but that they are still empty and void,
let them not be deceived, so as if they escape the evil of their sickness,
and get well, they should seek to be baptized.(6) But if they cannot be
baptized who have already been sanctified by ecclesiastical baptism, why
are they offended in respect of their faith and the mercy of the Lord? Or
have they obtained indeed the divine favour, but in a shorter and more
limited measure of the divine gift and of the Holy Spirit, so as indeed to
be esteemed Christians, but yet not to be counted equal with others?
14. Nay, verily, the Holy Spirit is not given by measure, but is poured
out altogether on the believer. For if the day rises alike to all, and if
the sun is diffused with like and equal light over all, how much more does
Christ, who is the true sun and the true day, bestow in His Church the
light of eternal life with the like equality! Of which equality we see the
sacrament celebrated in Exodus, when the manna flowed down from heaven,
and, prefiguring the things to come, showed forth the nourishment of the
heavenly bread and the food of the coming Christ. For there, without
distinction either of sex or of age, an omer was collected equally by each
one? Whence it appeared that the mercy of Christ, and the heavenly grace
that would subsequently follow, was equally divided among all; without
difference of sex, without distinction of years, without accepting of
persons, upon all the people of God the gift of spiritual grace was shed.
Assuredly the same spiritual grace which is equally received in baptism by
believers, is subsequently either increased or diminished in our
conversation and conduct; as in the Gospel the Lord's seed is equally sown,
but, according to the variety of the soil, some is wasted, and some is
increased into a large variety of plenty, with an exuberant fruit of either
thirty or sixty or a hundred fold. But, once more, when each was called to
receive a penny, wherefore should what is distributed equally by God be
diminished by human interpretation?
15. But if any one is moved by this, that some of those who are
baptized in sickness are still tempted by unclean spirits, let him know
that the obstinate wickedness of the devil prevails even up to the saving
water, but that in baptism it loses all the poison of his wickedness. An
instance of this we see in the king Pharaoh, who, having struggled long,
and delayed in his perfidy, could resist and prevail until he came to the
water; but when he had come thither, he was both conquered and destroyed.
And that that sea was a sacrament of baptism, the blessed Apostle Paul
declares, saying, "Brethren, I would not have you ignorant how that all our
fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and were all
baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;" and he added, saying,
"Now all these things were our examples."(1) And this also is done in the
present day, in that the devil is scourged, and burned, and tortured by
exorcists, by the human voice, and by divine power;(2) and although he
often says. that he is going out, and will leave the men of God, yet in
that which he says he deceives, and puts in practice what was before done
by Pharaoh with the same obstinate and fraudulent deceit. When, however,
they come to the water of salvation and to the sanctification of baptism,
we ought to know and to trust that there the devil is beaten down, and the
man, dedicated to God, is set free by the divine mercy. For as scorpions
and serpents, which prevail on the dry ground, when cast into water, cannot
prevail nor retain their venom; so also the wicked spirits, which are
called scorpions and serpents, and yet are trodden under foot by us, by the
power given by the Lord, cannot remain any longer in the body of a man in
whom, baptized and sanctified, the Holy Spirit is beginning to dwell.
16. This, finally, in very fact also we experience, that those who are
baptized by urgent necessity in sickness, and obtain grace, are free from
the unclean spirit wherewith they were previously moved, and live in the
Church in praise and honour, and day by day make more and more advance in
the increase of heavenly grace by the growth of their faith. And, on the
other hand, some of those who are baptized in health, if subsequently they
begin to sin, are shaken by the return of the unclean spirit, so that it is
manifest that the devil is driven out in baptism by the faith of the
believer, and returns if the faith afterwards shall fail. Unless, indeed,
it seems just to some, that they who, outside the Church among adversaries
and antichrists, are polluted with profane water, should be judged to be
baptized; while they who are baptized in the Church are thought to have
attained less of divine mercy and grace; and so great consideration be had
for heretics, that they who come from heresy are not interrogated whether
they are washed or sprinkled, whether they be clinics or peripatetics; but
among us the sound truth of faith is disparaged, and in ecclesiastical
baptism its majesty and sanctity suffer derogation.(3)
17. I have replied, dearest son, to your letter, so far as my poor
ability prevailed; and I have shown, as far as I could, what I think;
prescribing to no one, so as to prevent any prelate from determining what
he thinks right, as he shall give an account of his own doings to the Lord,
according to what the blessed Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Romans
writes and says: "Every one of us shall give account for himself: let us
not therefore judge one another."(4) I bid you, dearest son, ever heartily
farewell.
EPISTLE LXXVI.(5)
CYPRIAN TO NEMESIANUS AND OTHER MARTYRS IN THE MINES.(6)
ARGUMENT.--HE EXTOLS WITH WONDERFUL COMMENDATIONS THE MARTYRS IN THE MINES,
OPPOSING, IN A BEAUTIFUL ANTITHESIS, TO THE TORTURES OF EACH, THE
CONSOLATIONS OF EACH.
1. Cyprian to Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus,
Polianus, Victor, Jader, and Dativus, his fellow-bishops, also to his
fellow-presbyters and deacons, and the rest of the brethren in the mines,
martyrs of God the Father Almighty, and of Jesus Christ our Lord, and of
God our preserver, everlasting greeting. Your glory, indeed, would demand,
most blessed and beloved brethren, that I myself should come to see and to
embrace you, if the limits of the place appointed me did not restrain me,
banished as I am for the sake of the confession of the Name. But in what
way I can, I bring myself into your presence; and even though it is not
permitted me to come to you in body and in movement, yet in love and in
spirit I come expressing my mind in my letter, in which mind I joyfully
exult in those virtues and praises of yours, counting myself a partaker
with you, although not in bodily suffering, yet in community of love. Could
I be silent and restrain my voice in stillness, when I am made aware of so
many and such glorious things concerning my dearest friends, things with
which the divine condescension has honoured you, so that part of you have
already gone before by the consummation of their martyrdom to receive from
their Lord the crown of their deserts? Part still abide in the dungeons of
the prison, or in the mines and in chains, exhibiting by the very delays of
their punishments, greater examples for the strengthening and arming of the
brethren, advancing by the tediousness of their tortures to more ample
titles of merit, to receive as many payments in heavenly rewards, as days
are now counted in their punishments. I do not marvel, most brave and
blessed brethren, that these things have happened to you in consideration
of the desert of your religion and your faith; that the Lord should thus
have lifted you to the lofty height of glory by the honour of His
glorification, seeing that you have always flourished in His Church,
guarding the tenor of the faith, keeping firmly the Lord's commands; in
simplicity, innocence; in charity, concord; modesty in humility, diligence
in administration, watchfulness in helping those that suffer, mercy in
cherishing the poor, constancy in defending the truth, judgment in severity
of discipline. And that nothing should be wanting to the example of good
deeds in you, even now, in the confession of your voice and the suffering
of your body, you provoke the minds of your brethren to divine martyrdom,
by exhibiting yourselves as leaders of virtue, that while the flock follows
its pastors, and imitates what it sees to be done by those set over it, it
may be crowned with the like merits of obedience by the Lord.
2. But that, being first severely beaten with clubs, and ill-used, you
have begun by sufferings of that kind, the glorious firstlings of your
confession, is not a matter to be execrated by us. For a Christian body is
not very greatly terrified at clubs, seeing all its hope is in the Wood.(1)
The servant of Christ acknowledges the sacrament of his salvation: redeemed
by wood to life eternal, he is advanced by wood to the crown. But what
wonder if, as golden and silver vessels, you have been committed to the
mine that is the home of gold and silver, except that now the nature of the
mines is changed, and the places which previously had been accustomed to
yield gold and silver have begun to receive them? Moreover, they have put
fetters on your feet, and have bound your blessed limbs, and the temples of
God with disgraceful chains, as if the spirit also could be bound with the
body, or your gold could be stained by the contact of iron. To men who are
dedicated to God, and attesting their faith with religious courage, such
things are ornaments, not chains; nor do they bind the feet of the
Christians for infamy, but glorify them for a crown. Oh feet blessedly
bound, which are loosed, not by the smith but by the Lord! Oh feet
blessedly bound, which are guided to paradise in the way of salvation! Oh
feet bound for the present time in the world, that they may be always free
with the Lord! Oh feet, lingering for a while among the fetters and cross-
bars,(2) but to run quickly to Christ on a glorious road! Let cruelty,
either envious or malignant, hold you here in its bonds and chains as long
as it will, from this earth and from these sufferings you shall speedily
come to the kingdom of heaven. The body is not cherished in the mines with
couch and cushions, but it is cherished with the refreshment and solace of
Christ. The frame wearied with labours lies prostrate on the ground, but it
is no penalty to lie down with Christ. Your limbs unbathed, are foul and
disfigured with filth and dirt; but within they are spiritually cleansed,
although without the flesh is defiled. There the bread is scarce; but man
liveth not by bread alone, but by the word of God. Shivering, you want
clothing; but he who puts on Christ is both abundantly clothed and adorned.
The hair of your half-shorn bead(3) seems repulsive; but since Christ is
the head of the man, anything whatever must needs become that head which is
illustrious on account of Christ's name. All that deformity, detestable and
foul to Gentiles, with what splendour shall it be recompensed! This
temporal and brief suffering, how shall it be exchanged for the re ward of
a bright and eternal honour, when, according to the word of the blessed
apostle, "the Lord shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be
fashioned like to the body of His brightness!"(4)
3. But there cannot be felt any loss of either religion or faith, most
beloved brethren, in the fact that now there is given no opportunity there
to God's priests for offering and celebrating the divine sacrifices; yea,
you celebrate and offer a sacrifice to God equally(5) precious and
glorious, and that will greatly profit you for the retribution of heavenly
rewards, since the sacred Scripture speaks, saying, "The sacrifice of God
is a broken spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God doth not despise."(6)
You offer this sacrifice to God; you celebrate this sacrifice without
intermission day and night, being made victims to God, and exhibiting
yourselves as holy and unspotted offerings, as the apostle exhorts and
says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. And be
not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will
of God."(1)
4. For this it is which especially pleases God; it is this wherein our
works with greater deserts are successful in earning God's good-will; this
it is which alone the obedience of our faith and devotion can render to the
Lord for His great and saving benefits, as the Holy Spirit declares and
witnesses in the Psalms: "What shall I render," says He, "to the Lord for
all His benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation, and I will
call upon the name of the Lord. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the
death of His saints."(2) Who would not gladly and readily receive the cup
of salvation? Who would not with joy and gladness desire that in which he
himself also may render somewhat unto His Lord? Who would not bravely and
unfalteringly receive a death precious in the sight of the Lord, to please
His eyes, who, looking down from above upon us who are placed in the
conflict for His name, approves the willing, assists the struggling, crowns
the conquering with the recompense of patience, goodness, and affection,
rewarding in us whatever He Himself has bestowed, and honouring what He has
accomplished?
5. For that it is His doing that we conquer, and that we attain by the
subduing of the adversary to the palm of the greatest contest, the Lord
declares and teaches in His Gospel, saying, "But when they deliver you up,
take no thought how or what ye shall speak; for it shall be given you in
that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the
Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you."(3) And again: "Settle it
therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer; for
I will give you a month and wisdom, which your adversaries shall not be
able to resist."(4) In which, indeed, is both the great confidence of
believers, and the gravest fault of the faithless, that they do not trust
Him who promises to give His help to those who confess Him, and do not on
the other hand fear Him who threatens eternal punishment to those who deny
Him.
6. All which things, most brave and faithful soldiers of Christ, you
have suggested to your brethren, fulfilling in deeds what ye have
previously taught in words, hereafter to be greatest in the kingdom of
heaven, as the Lord promises and says, "Whosoever shall do and teach so,
shall be called the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."(5) Moreover, a
manifold portion of the people, following your example, have confessed
alike with you, and alike have been crowned, associated with you in the
bond of the strongest charity, and separated from their prelates neither
by the prison nor by the mines; in the number of whom neither are there
wanting virgins in whom the hundred-fold are added to the fruit of sixty-
fold, and whom a double glory has advanced to the heavenly crown. In boys
also a I courage greater than their age has surpassed their years in the
praise of their confession, so that every sex and every age should adorn
the blessed flock of your martyrdom.(6)
7. What now must be the vigour, beloved brethren, of your victorious
consciousness, what the loftiness of your mind, what exultation in
feeling, what triumph in your breast, that every one of you stands near to
the promised reward of God, are secure from the judgment of God, walk in
the mines with a body captive indeed, but with a heart reigning, that you
know Christ is present with you, rejoicing in the endurance of His
servants, who are ascending by His footsteps and in His paths to the
eternal kingdoms! You daily expect with joy the saving day of your
departure; and already about to withdraw from the world, you are hastening
to the rewards of martyrdom, and to the divine homes, to behold after this
darkness of the world the purest light, and to receive a glory greater than
all sufferings and conflicts, as the apostle witnesses, and says, "The
sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory that shall be revealed in us."(7) And because now your word is more
effectual in prayers, and supplication is more quick to obtain what is
sought for in afflictions, seek more eagerly, and ask that the divine
condescension would consummate the confession of all of us; that from this
darkness and these snares of the world God would set us also free with you,
sound and glorious; that we who here are united in the bond of charity and
peace, and have stood together against the wrongs of heretics and the
oppressions of the heathens, may rejoice together in the heavenly kingdom.
I bid you, most blessed and most beloved brethren, ever farewell in the
Lord, and always and everywhere remember me.(8)
EPISTLE LXXVII.(9)
THE REPLY OF NEMESIANUS, DATIVUS, FELIX, AND VICTOR, TO CYPRIAN.
ARGUMENT.--THIS EPISTLE AND THE TWO FOLLOWING CONTAIN NOTHING ELSE THAN
REPLIES TO THE FOREGOING, INASMUCH AS THEY CONTAIN THE THANKSGIVING AS WELL
FOR THE COMFORT CONVEYED BY THE LETTER AS FOR THE ASSISTANCE SENT
THEREWITH. BUT FROM THE FACT THAT THREE DISTINCT LETTERS ARE SENT IN REPLY
TO THE SINGLE ONE OF CYPRIAN'S, WE ARE TO GATHER THAT THE BISHOPS WHO WROTE
THEM WERE PLACED IN DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS OF THE MINES.(1)
1. Nemesianus, Dativus, Felix, and Victor, to their brother Cyprian, in
the Lord eternal salvation. You speak, dearly beloved Cyprian, in your
letters always with deep meaning, as suits the condition of the time, by
the assiduous reading of which letters both the wicked are corrected and
men of good faith are confirmed. For while you do not cease in your
writings to lay bare the hidden mysteries, you thus make us to grow in
faith, and men from the world to draw near to belief. For by whatever good
things you have introduced in your many books, unconsciously you have
described yourself to us. For you are greater than all men in discourse, in
speech more eloquent, in counsel wiser, in patience more simple, in works
more abundant, in abstinence more holy, in obedience more humble, and in
good deeds more innocent. And you yourself know, beloved, that our eager
wish was, that we might see you, our teacher and our lover, attain to the
crown of a great confession.
2. For, in the proceedings before the proconsul; as a good and true
teacher you first have pronounced that which we your disciples, following
you, ought to say before the president. And, as a sounding trumpet, you
have stirred up God's soldiers, furnished with heavenly arms, to the close
encounter; and fighting in the first rank, you have slain the devil with a
spiritual sword: you have also ordered the troops of the brethren, on the
one hand and on the other, with your words, so that snares were on all
sides laid for the enemy, and the severed sinews of the very carcase of the
public foe were trodden under foot.(2) Believe us, dearest, that your
innocent spirit is not far from the hundred-fold reward, seeing that it has
feared neither the first onsets of the world, nor shrunk from going into
exile, nor hesitated to leave the city, nor dreaded to dwell in a desert
place; and since it furnished many with an example of confession, itself
first spoke the martyr-witness. For it provoked others to acts of martyrdom
by its own example; and not only began to be a companion of the martyrs
already departing from the world, but also linked a heavenly friendship
with those who should be so.
3. Therefore they who were condemned with us give you before God the
greatest thanks, beloved Cyprian, that in your letter you have refreshed
their suffering breasts; have healed their limbs wounded with clubs; have
loosened their feet bound with fetters; have smoothed the hair of their
half-shorn head; have illuminated the darkness of the dungeon; have brought
down the mountains of the mine to a smooth surface; have even placed
fragrant flowers to their nostrils, and have shut out the foul odour of the
smoke.(3) Moreover, your continued gifts, and those of our beloved
Quirinus, which you sent to be distributed by Herennianus the sub-deacon,
and Lucian, and Maximus, and Amantius the acolytes, provided a supply of
whatever had been wanting for the necessities of their bodies. Let us,
then, be in our prayers helpers of one another: and let us ask, as you have
bidden us, that we may have God and Christ and the angels as supporters in
all our actions. We bid you, lord and brother, ever heartily farewell, and
have us in mind. Greet all who are with you. All ours who are with us love
you, and greet you, and desire to see you.
EPISTLE LXXVIII.(4)
THE REPLY TO THE SAME OF LUCIUS AND THE REST OF THE MARTYRS.
ARGUMENT.--THE ARGUMENT OF THE PRESENT LETTER IS, IN SUBSTANCE, THE SAME AS
THAT OF THE PRECEDING; AND THEREFORE IT IS NOT A LETTER OF LUCIUS THE ROMAN
BISHOP, BUT OF LUCIUS THE AFRICAN BISHOP AND MARTYR.
1. To Cyprian our brother and colleague, Lucius, and all the brethren
who are with me in the Lord, greeting. Your letter came to us, dearest
brother, while we were exulting and rejoicing in God that He had armed us
for the struggle, and had made us by His condescension conquerors in the
battle; the letter, namely, which you sent to us by Herennianus the sub-
deacon, and Lucian, and Maximus, and Amantius the acolytes,(5) which when
we read we received a relaxation in our bonds, a solace in our affliction,
and a support in our necessity; and we were aroused and more strenuously
animated to bear whatever more of punishment might be awaiting us. For
before our suffering we were called forth by you to glory, who first
afforded us guidance to confession of the name of Christ. We indeed, who
follow the footsteps of your confession, hope for an equal grace with you.
For he who is first in the race is first also for the reward; and you who
first occupied the course thence have communicated this to us from what you
began, showing doubtless the undivided love wherewith you have always loved
us, so that we who had one Spirit in the bond of peace might have the grace
of your(1) prayers, and one crown of confession.
2. But in your case, dearest brother, to the crown of confession is
added the reward of your labours--an abundant measure which you shall
receive from the Lord in the day of retribution, who have by your letter
presented yourself to us, as you manifested to us that candid and blessed
breast of yours which we have ever known, and in accordance with its
largeness have uttered praises to God with us, not as much as we deserve to
hear, but as much as you are able to utter. For with your words you have
both adorned those things which had been less in-strutted in us, and have
strengthened us to the sustaining of those sufferings which we bear,(2) as
being certain of the heavenly rewards, and of the crown of martyrdom, and
of the kingdom of God, from the prophecy which, being filled with the Holy
Spirit, you have pledged to us in your letter. All this will happen,
beloved, if you will have us in mind in your prayers, which I trust you do
even as we certainly do.
3. And thus, O brother most longed-for, we have received what you sent
to us from Quirinus and from yourself, a sacrifice from every clean thing.
Even as Noah offered to God, and God was pleased with the sweet savour, and
had respect unto his offering, so also may He have respect unto yours, and
may He be pleased to return to you the reward of this so good work. But I
beg that you will command the letter which we have written to Quirinus to
be sent forward. I bid you, dearest brother and earnestly desired, ever
heartily farewell, and remember us.(3) Greet all who are with you.
Farewell.
EPISTLE LXXIX.(4)
THE ANSWER OF FELIX, JADER, POLIANUS, AND THE REST OF THE MARTYRS, TO
CYPRIAN.
ARGUMENT.--THE MARTYRS ABOVE SPOKEN OF ACKNOWLEDGE WITH GRATITUDE THE
ASSISTANCE SENT TO THEM BY CYPRIAN.
To our dearest and best beloved Cyprian, Felix, Jader, Polianus,
together with the presbyters and all who are abiding with us at the mine of
Sigua, eternal health in the Lord. We reply to your salutation, dearest
brother, by Herennianus the sub-deacon, Lucian and Maximus our brethren,
strong and safe by the aid of your prayers, from whom we have received a
sum under the name of an offering, together with your letter which you
wrote, and in which you have condescended to comfort us as if we were sons,
out of the heavenly words. And we have given and do give thanks to God the
Father Almighty through His Christ, that we have been thus comforted and
strengthened by your address, asking from the candour of your mind that you
would deign to have us in mind in your constant prayers, that the Lord
would supply what is wanting in your confession and ours, which He has
condescended to confer on us. Greet all who abide with you. We bid you,
dearest brother, ever heartily farewell in God. I Felix wrote this; I Jader
subscribed it; I Polianus read it. I greet my lord Eutychianus.
EPISTLE LXXX.(5)
CYPRIAN TO SERGIUS, ROGATIANUS, AND THE OTHER CONFESSORS IN PRISON.
ARGUMENT.--HE CONSOLES ROGATIANUS AND HIS COLLEAGUES, THE CONFESSORS IN
PRISON, AND GIVES THEM COURAGE BY THE EXAMPLE OF THE MARTYRS ROGATIANUS THE
ELDER AND FELICISSIMUS. THE LETTER ITSELF INDICATES THAT IT WAS WRITTEN IN
EXILE.
1. Cyprian to Sergius and Rogatianus, and the rest of the confessors in
the Lord, everlasting health. I salute you, dearest and most blessed
brethren, myself also desiring to enjoy the sight of you, if the state in
which I am placed would permit me to come to you. For what could happen to
me more desirable and more joyful than to be now close to you, that you
might embrace me with those hands, which, pure and innocent, and
maintaining the faith of the Lord, have rejected the profane obedience?
What more pleasant and sublime than now to kiss your lips, which with a
glorious voice have confessed the Lord, to be looked upon even in presence
by your eyes, which, despising the world, have become worthy(6) of looking
upon God? But since opportunity is not afforded me to share in this joy, I
send this letter in my stead to your ears and to your eyes, by which I
congratulate and exhort you that you persevere strongly and steadily in the
confession of the heavenly glory; and having entered on the way of the
Lord's condescension, that you go on in the strength of the Spirit, to
receive the crown, having the Lord as your protector and guide, who said,
"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."(7) O blessed
prison, which your presence has enlightened! O blessed prison, which sends
the men of God to heaven! O darkness, more bright than the sun itself, and
clearer than the light of this world, where now are placed temples of God,
and your members are to be sanctified by divine confessions!
2. Nor let anything now be revolved in your hearts and minds besides
the divine precepts and heavenly commands, with which the Holy Spirit has
ever animated you to the endurance of suffering. Let no one think of death,
but of immortality; nor of temporary punishment, but of eternal glory;
since it is written, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His
saints;"(1) and again, "A broken spirit is a sacrifice to God: a contrite
and humble heart God doth not despise."(2) And again, where the sacred
Scripture speaks of the tortures which consecrate God's martyrs, and
sanctify them in the very trial of suffering: "And if they have suffered
torments in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality; and
having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly rewarded: for God
proved them, and found them worthy of Himself. As gold in the furnace hath
He tried them, and received them as a sacrifice of a burnt-offering, and in
due time regard shall be had unto them. The righteous shall shine, and
shall run to and fro like sparks among the stubble. They shall judge the
nations, and have dominion over the people; and their Lord shall reign for
ever."(3) When, therefore, you reflect that you shall judge and reign with
Christ the Lord, you must needs exult and tread under foot present
sufferings, in the joy of what is to come; knowing that from the beginning
of the world it has been so appointed that righteousness should suffer
there in the conflict of the world, since in the beginning, even at the
first, the righteous Abel was slain, and thereafter all righteous men, and
prophets, and apostles who were sent. To all of whom the Lord also in
Himself has appointed an example, teaching that none shall attain to His
kingdom but those who have followed Him in His own way, saying, "He that
loveth his life in this world shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in
this world shall keep it unto life eternal."(4) And again: "Fear not them
which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear
Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."(5) Paul also
exhorts us that we who desire to attain to the Lord's promises ought to
imitate the Lord in all things. "We are," says he, "the sons of God: but if
sons, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that
we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."(6) Moreover,
he added the comparison of the present time and of the future glory,
saying, "The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared
with the coming glory which shall be revealed in us."(7) Of which
brightness, when we consider the glory, it behoves us to bear all
afflictions and persecutions; because, although many are the afflictions of
the righteous, yet those are delivered from them all who trust in God.
3. Blessed women also, who are established with you in the same glory
of confession, who, maintaining the Lord's faith, and braver than their
sex, not only themselves are near to the crown of glory, but have afforded
an example to other women by their constancy! And lest anything should be
wanting to the glory of your number, that each sex and every age also might
be with you in honour, the divine condescension has also associated with
you boys(8) in a glorious confession; representing to us something of the
same kind as once did Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, the illustrious youths
to whom, when shut up in the furnace, the fires gave way, and the flames
gave refreshment, the Lord being present with them, and proving that
against His confessors and martyrs the heat of hell could have no power,
but that they who trusted in God should always continue unhurt and safe in
all dangers. And I beg you to consider more carefully, in accordance with
your religion, what must have been the faith in these youths which could
deserve such full acknowledgment from the Lord. For, prepared for every
fate, as we ought all to be, they say to the king, "O king Nebuchadnezzar,
we are not careful to answer thee in this matter; for our God whom we serve
is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and He will deliver
us out of thine hand, O king! But if not, be it known unto thee, O king,
that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou
hast set up."(9) Although they believed, and, in accordance with their
faith, knew that they might even be delivered from their present
punishment, they still would not boast of this, nor claim it for
themselves, saying, "But if not." Lest the virtue of their confession
should be less without the testimony of their suffering, they added that
God could do all things; but yet they would not trust in this, so as to
wish to be delivered at the moment; but they thought on that glory. of
eternal liberty and security.
4. And you also, retaining this faith, and meditating day and night,
with your whole heart prepared for God, think of the future only, with
contempt for the present, that you may be able to come to the fruit of the
eternal kingdom, and to the embrace and kiss, and the sight of the Lord,
that you may follow in all things Rogatianus the presbyter, the glorious
old man who, to the glory of our time, makes a way for you by his religious
courage and divine condescension, who, with Felicissimus our brother, ever
quiet and temperate, receiving the attack of a ferocious people, first
prepared for you a dwelling in the prison, and, marking out the way(1) for
you in some measure, now also goes before you. That this may be consummated
in you, we beseech the Lord in constant prayers, that from beginnings going
on to the highest results, He may cause those whom He has made to confess,
also to be crowned. I bid you, dearest and most beloved brethren, ever
heartily farewell in the Lord; and may you attain to the crown of heavenly
glory. Victor the deacon, and those who are with me, greet you.
EPISTLE LXXXI.(2)
TO SUCCESSUS ON THE TIDINGS BROUGHT FROM ROME, TELLING OF THE PERSECUTION.
ARGUMENT.--CYPRIAN TELLS THE BISHOP SUCCESSUS, THAT IN A SEVERE PERSECUTION
THAT HAD BEEN DECREED BY THE EMPEROR VALERIAN(3) XISTUS THE BISHOP HAD
SUFFERED AT ROME ON THE EIGHTH OF THE IDES OF AUGUST; AND HE BEGS HIM TO
INTIMATE THE SAME TO THE REST OF HIS COLLEAGUES, THAT EACH ONE MIGHT
ANIMATE HIS OWN FLOCK TO MARTYRDOM.
1. Cyprian to his brother Successus, greeting. The reason why I could
not write to you immediately, dearest brother, was that all the clergy,
being placed in the very heat of the contest, were unable in any way to
depart hence, all of them being prepared in accordance with the devotion of
their mind for divine and heavenly glory. But know that those have come
whom I had sent to the City(4) for this purpose, that they might find out
and bring back to us the truth, in whatever manner it had been decreed
respecting us. For many various and uncertain things are current in men's
opinions. But the truth concerning them is as follows, that Valerian had
sent a rescript to the Senate, to the effect that bishops and presbyters
and deacons should immediately be punished; but that senators, and men of
importance, and Roman knights,(5) should lose their dignity, and moreover
be deprived of their property; and if, when their means were taken away,
they should persist in being Christians, then they should also lose their
heads; but that matrons should be deprived of their property, and sent into
banishment. Moreover, people of Caesar's household, whoever of them had
either confessed before, or should now confess, should have their property
confiscated, and should be sent in chains by assignment to Caesar's
estates. The Emperor Valerian also added to this address a copy of the
letters which he sent to the presidents of the provinces concerning us;
which letters we are daily hoping will come, waiting according to the
strength of our faith for the endurance of suffering, and expecting from
the help and mercy of the Lord the crown of eternal life. But know that
Xistus was martyred in the cemetery on the eighth day of the Ides of
August, and with him four deacons.(6) Moreover, the prefects in the City(7)
are daily urging on this persecution; so that, if any are presented to
them, they are martyred, and their property claimed by the treasury.
2. I beg that these things may be made known by your means to the rest
of our colleagues, that everywhere, by their exhortation, the brotherhood
may be strengthened and prepared for the spiritual conflict, that every one
of us may think less of death than of immortality; and, dedicated to the
Lord, with full faith and entire courage, may rejoice rather than fear in
this confession, wherein they know that the soldiers of God and Christ are
not slain, but crowned. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily farewell
in the Lord.(8)
EPISTLE LXXXII.(9)
TO THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE CONCERNING HIS RETIREMENT, A LITTLE BEFORE HIS
MARTYRDOM.
ARGUMENT.--WHEN, NEAR THE END OF HIS LIFE, CYPRIAN, ON RETURNING TO HIS
GARDENS, WAS TOLD THAT MESSENGERS WERE SENT TO TAKE HIM FOR PUNISHMENT TO
UTICA, HE WITHDREW. AND LEST IT SHOULD BE THOUGHT THAT HE HAD DONE SO FROM
FEAR OF DEATH, HE GIVES THE REASON IN THIS LETTER, VIZ., THAT HE MIGHT
UNDERGO HIS MARTYRDOM NOWHERE ELSE THAN AT CARTHAGE, IN THE SIGHT OF HIS
OWN PEOPLE. A.D. 258.
1. Cyprian to the presbyters and deacons, and all the people, greeting.
When it had been told to us, dearest brethren, that the gaolers(10) had
been sent to bring me to Utica, and I had been persuaded by the counsel of
those dearest to me to withdraw for a time from my gardens, as a just
reason was afforded I consented. For the reason that it is fit for a
bishop, in that city in which he presides over the Church of the Lord,
there to confess the Lord, and that the whole people should be glorified by
the confession of their prelate in their presence. For whatever, in that
moment of confession, the confessor-bishop speaks, he speaks in the mouth
of all, by inspiration of God.(1) But the honour of our Church, glorious as
it is, will be mutilated if I, a bishop placed over another church,
receiving my sentence or my confession at Utica, should go thence as a
martyr to the Lord, when indeed, both for my own sake and yours, I pray
with continual supplications, and with all my desires entreat, that I may
confess among you, and there suffer, and thence depart to the Lord even as
I ought. Therefore here in a hidden retreat I await the arrival of the
proconsul returning to Carthage, that I may hear from him what the emperors
have commanded upon the subject of Christian laymen and bishops, and may
say what the Lord will wish to be said at that hour.
2. But do you, dearest brethren, according to the discipline which you
have ever received from me out of the Lord's commands, and according to
what you have so very often learnt from my discourse, keep peace and
tranquillity; nor let any of you stir up any tumult for the brethren, or
voluntarily offer himself to the Gentiles. For when apprehended and
delivered up, he ought to speak, inasmuch as the Lord abiding in us speaks
in that hour, who willed that we should rather confess than profess. But
for the rest, what it is fitting that we should observe before the
proconsul passes sentence on me for the confession of the name of God, we
will with the instruction of the Lord arrange in common.(2) May our Lord
make you, dearest brethren, to remain safe in His Church, and condescend to
keep you. So be it through His mercy.
Taken from "The Early Church Fathers and Other Works" originally published
by Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. in English in Edinburgh, Scotland beginning in
1867. (ANF 5, Roberts and Donaldson). The digital version is by The
Electronic Bible Society, P.O. Box 701356, Dallas, TX 75370, 214-407-WORD.
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